Kingdom Hearts - Awakened Fate
by HolyEmperorGilgamesh
Summary: Inspired by cornhelio4's Kingdom Hearts Birthright. Sora remembers nothing about his life before he came to Destiny Islands. His memory is a complete blank slate. Even his birth name is gone. And his days of fun and peace are about to come to an end. Dark forces are coming and their arrival will send Sora on an adventure he will never forget. Set in KH1.
1. Chapter 00

**Greetings and welcome to my first ever attempt to writing a fanfiction story. Since Kingdom Hearts was my first ever ps2 video game - in fact, I first bought a ps2 solely so I could play Kingdom Hearts as a kid - I decided to base my first story off of it. Inspired by Golden Zero16 and cornholio4, I have decided to make it a Fire Emblem Fates crossover.**

 **Similar to cornholio4's Kingdom Hearts Birthright, this story will feature Sora as the lost prince of Hoshido, Corrin. Sorry man, but your idea was just too good and I couldn't help myself. This story will hopefully be the first in a series where Sora goes on harrowing adventures, some familiar and some changed, to save the worlds and discover his true identity. Here, we will cover the events of Kingdom Hearts 1.**

 **So, without further adieu, I present to you chapter 00. Forewarning, the first section of this chapter is in 1st Person PoV and the second half is in 3rd Person. Let me know what you think.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts series, Fire Emblem series, the Final Fantasy series, or any characters associated with these video games.**

* * *

Fates of Kingdom Hearts

Chapter 00 – What Happened Last Night?

 _ **Unknown Place, Middle of the Night**_

 _ **Unknown Year**_

 _As he stared down the cobbled street, the young boy could swear he heard someone walking amongst the many mist shrouded figures ahead of him. The faint sounds coming them were too soft to be anything but footsteps in the distance. Yet he couldn't see a single person move in the shimmering mist, which seemed to glow under the light of the full moon._

 _They were like shadows amongst the silvery haze, forming a blockade that kept the child from seeing the end of the street. The boy did not know why but he was afraid of these people and did not want to go anywhere near them. Yet, despite his strong desire to leave, something kept him from going back the way he had come._

 _He was stuck. He did not like it and wanted to do something._

 _Before the child had a chance to even decide what he was going to do, he heard a cold voice cut through the night air. It emanated from somewhere among the shadow-like people._

" _Fire at will."_

 _As soon as the hidden speaker finished talking, the mist clad figures unleashed a storm of arrows at the child. The young boy could only watch as death approached him in the form of wooden projectiles. Many wooden projectiles._

 _His heart was overcome with terror at the sight, preventing him from making a move. But he was not alone. And that person was not paralyzed by fear._

 _Seemingly stepping out of thin air, a tall man with a long mane of spiky black hair and a sleeveless obsidian coat over white armor placed himself between the boy and the onrushing arrows. Armed with only a single curved blade, which he carried in his right hand, the man attempted to deflect the approaching projectiles._

 _He managed to hit a few of them with his sword but it wasn't enough. There were simply too many coming all at once and they were coming too fast for him alone to stop them all. And the armored man himself was now directly in their flight path._

 _The swordsman cried out as he was struck over and over again by some of the wooden projectiles, each arrow piercing him in a different part of his body. Those remained firmly stuck to where they had hit him while their brothers and sisters flew past him._

 _A few of the latter group came dangerously close to hitting the terrified boy watching all this unfold. By some small miracle, none of the arrows even scratched the child as they all flew on passed him. All he felt was a cold breeze whenever an arrow flew too close to him during its voyage._

 _His eyes locked to the scene in front of him, the boy watched as the armored warrior – someone he felt he knew, though he could not recall the man's name – collapsed to one knee, his pain too great for him to continue standing. As if his fall was some sort of signal, the hail of arrows stopped. The sight of him like that nearly caused tears to start falling from the child's eyes._

" _I'm disappointed in you, Sumeragi," the cold voice from before spoke again from amongst the crowd. As soon as that person started speaking, the sound of footsteps once again reached the child's ears. And they were getting louder with each step._

 _Swallowing thickly, the boy looked past the white armored man's shoulder and watched as a tall figure stepped out from the mist and the throng of people lurking within it. The newcomer was still too far away for the boy to make out any details in the darkness but this person was steadily approaching the boy's protector. Whoever they were, their voice identified them as a man._

 _As he came forward, stepping into the moonlight while doing so, this new person chuckled in a nasty manner. He said, "That wasn't even my best trap."_

 _As the mysterious speaker came to stand before the injured swordsman, the terrified boy saw that he was a tall man with pale skin, dark eyes, and a long white beard with matching hair. A small black crown rested on top of his head and a massive axe was clutched in his right hand. The newcomer was covered in heavy black armor of a different style to the injured man's and he wore a heavy black cape with a thick white furred outlining over top of it._

'What… what is he going to do to?' _the boy thought, swallowing thickly as he watched the newcomer smile down at his injured protector. There was nothing kind in that smile, even a child as young as the boy could see that._

 _Without saying another word, the mysterious man effortlessly lifted his axe in preparation to strike. His target was clearly the long haired man kneeling before him. Realizing what the stranger was about to do with his weapon, the child turned his eyes away from the scene. He couldn't bear to see the white armored man hurt any further._

 _Sadly, his refusal to see the event occur didn't stop it from happening._

 _A cry of pain erupted from the injured man shortly after the boy had turned his eyes away. This yell was much louder than the ones he had voiced while being hit by arrows. The child flinched at the sound, a powerful urge to cry blossoming in his small chest. He was forced it down while clenching his pants with his hands, resisting the sudden urge to cover his ears._

 _The child desperately hoped the kind man was all right._

 _Too afraid of what he might see if he looked up, the child stared at his sandaled feet and the cobbles below them. His body was shivering immensely now and it wasn't because the night air was cold._

 _His dread increased when he heard the stranger let out an unhappy sigh._

" _Disappointing indeed," said the tall man with the large axe. He almost sounded genuinely upset about something. Perhaps he was expecting a better fight?_

 _The boy didn't care. He just wanted this man gone and his injured protector to be all right. He wanted to be somewhere else right now._

 _In spite of his wishes, the black armored figure spoke again and his voice was again utterly cold. "Well… at least you did as I asked and brought the boy." Heavy footsteps immediately started emanating from his direction._

 _Surprised that the bad man was now talking about him, the terrified child turned his gaze upwards. His terror reached a new height when he saw that the swordsman who tried to protect him was now lying on his side in the middle of the street. And that the cape wearing man was advancing towards him, having already moved past the long haired man._

 _Not wanting to let the stranger touch him but too terrified to run, the child started walking backwards in an attempt to stay away from the man. The motion was of little help because the stranger's strides were much longer than his own and the boy's legs were slowed tremendously by his fear._

'What does he want now? What is he going to do?' _were the thoughts running through the scared child's mind._

 _Not looking where he was stepping as he backed away from the nasty man proved to be a mistake. The boy stepped on a loose rock and it slid out from under him as he moved to take his next step. His balance lost, the child wildly waved his arms as he fell on his rump._

 _It was only his palms slapping against the cobbles at the last second that kept him from falling completely on his back. The boy cried out in equal parts pain and surprise at the impact, closing his eyes out of reflex. His hands hurt from the fall, the pain giving him a new reason to cry. An action he just barely suppressed once again._

" _Now, now," the stranger spoke again, his voice coming from directly above the boy this time. "There will be no more running from you tonight."_

 _Terrified eyes snapping open, the boy found himself staring at the stranger's armored legs. Shifting his gaze upwards, he immediately made eye contact with the bad man, who looked down at him with an unkind smile and dark eyes._

 _Seeing the stranger's face up close now, a small part of the terrified child's mind decided that the mysterious figure was quite old by how worn his skin seemed, never mind how white his hair and beard were. The rest of him did not find that information very important at the moment._

" _Oh, you poor thing," the axe swinging man spoke, the tone of his voice telling the child that he was being made fun of. At any other time, the boy would probably have been annoyed by this. Now, he was just too scared to care. "Orphaned at such a… tender young age."_

 _Bending down slightly, the strange man reached out for the child with his left hand while his right continued to clutch the shaft of his large axe. Gasping, the child started to push himself away from the approaching limb with his hands and feet. His desperate crawling wasn't anywhere near fast enough for him to escape the armored limb, which roughly took hold of his shirt's front._

 _With the tiniest of scowls on his face, the black armored figure pulled himself to his feet and lifted the boy off the street as he did so. Standing up straight, he didn't seem to have any trouble holding the lad up to his eye level with one arm._

 _Despite how much he wanted to look away from the stranger's hard face and cold black eyes, the boy was simply too afraid to move. He didn't even kick or pry at the hand holding him in the air. The child was certain he had never been this scared before in his life._

"… _Were it up to me, I would proceed with my original plan and make you my child now," the strange man spoke, his frown deepening with every word. "But alas…_ _ **his**_ _orders are absolute."_

 _There was something about the way the scary man uttered one specific word that struck out to the child for an instant. While the other words were delivered with what appeared to be his usual cold tone, that one had sounded different. The bad man almost sounded afraid when he said_ _ **his**_ _._

 _The boy didn't have very long to think of it. In fact, a fresh wave of terror engulfed him when that cruel smile suddenly reappeared on the scary man's face._

" _Still…" the armored figure spoke almost jovially now. With a twitch of his right arm, he lifted his large axe off the street. Speaking at the same time as he moved the weapon, the man said, "That doesn't mean I can't make… a few small adjustments."_

 _When he was finished speaking, the stranger brought his axe into a new position. Holding it vertically off the ground, he pointed it directly at the boy's chest. The spike on top of the axe's head came dangerously close to touching the child. A simple thrust and the child would be skewered on the weapon._

'He's going to kill me,' _the child thought. And though he did not make a single sound, he could feel his tears running down his cheeks. They were ice cold._

 _If the stranger even noticed, which was very likely given that he was still looking the boy in the eyes the entire time, the armored figure gave no sign that he did or cared in any way. After a moment of just standing there in silence while the boy cried, he spoke again._

"… _This will probably hurt," the old man told his captive, sounding completely unbothered by the fact. He almost sounded like he hoped it would._

'Stop. Please stop,' _the boy thought but his desperate pleas were neither heard nor heeded._

 _Without warning, what looked like purple flames suddenly appeared all around the tall man's armored body. They were at their strongest around his shoulders and the top of his crowned head, yet barely touched his legs and feet._

 _At the same time, the air suddenly became oppressively heavy for the child. Not only did it become impossible for him to breathe, but the lad felt as if he was caught in a giant invisible grip that was trying to crush him until he was the same size as a walnut or something even smaller. He couldn't find the strength to move his limbs for a completely different reason now. His body might as well have been stuck in a block of ice as the armored man held him off the ground._

 _He watched with wide eyes as the purple flames enveloping his captor quickly extended to the man's large weapon, unable to tear his eyes away from the stranger's now blazing figure. They seemed extra bright on the weapon's curved blade and an equally bright fireball, one about the size of the child's hand, came to rest on the tip of the axe's large spike._

'Don't… don't do this,' _the boy pleaded, looking directly into the strange man's dark eyes. The rest of his body continued to prove itself to be unresponsive to his now desperate commands to move._

 _As if hearing the boy's thoughts, the tall figure huffed and slowly pushed his axe towards the boy. He made the smallest of taps against the boy's chest with the small purple fireball, the contact taking place directly over the lad's heart. And just like he said there would be, there was pain._

 _Lots and lots of pain._

 _For the first time that dark night, the boy shrieked. Loudly._

 _A soul rending cry of absolute agony erupted from his mouth as he turned his gaze to the heavens above, where the stars looked down in apathy upon his situation. His body twisted and turned in the man's unrelenting grip in spite of the crushing pressure coming from all sides. His four limbs now remembered how to move and they were swinging in every direction in an out of control frenzy._

 _But all his moving about and screaming did nothing to make the pain cease._

 _The boy continued to scream and thrash around as his body felt like something massive had suddenly started to grow inside of his chest. It seemed to be getting bigger with every second and it was tearing him apart from the inside as it continued to increase in size and attempt to force its way out of him. At the same time, his skin felt like it had been set on fire even though not a single ember could be found anywhere on his small form._

 _This was… this was complete and utter agony. The likes of which the boy had never experienced before._

 _And just as suddenly it began, the pain stopped. Along with the pressure bearing down on him from all sides. The boy's limbs fell limply around his small torso as he gasped for air, suddenly recalling how to breathe. Unable to keep his head up anymore, his forehead nearly slammed into the black gauntlet of his captor's arm. His clothes clung tightly to him, a sure sign that they were drenched in his sweat, but he was too tired to care about that._

 _That entire awful experience left him completely exhausted, too tired to even be afraid of the stranger anymore._ _He hoped never to experience anything like that again._

 _And yet… something felt different about the boy now. Said boy could feel it, even in his exhausted state. A certain weight he had not even noticed he had before seemed to have disappeared from his body. It felt important that such a thing was gone but the child did not know why._

" _Hmm, yes," his captor suddenly spoke, sounding quite happy for some reason. The boy was too tired to wonder why. "This will do nicely."_

 _Still huffing slightly, the boy found the strength to lift his head slightly. Lifting his gaze from the stranger's armored forearm, he saw that the mysterious person's body was no longer shrouded in those strange purple flames. His large axe, which he was holding up in the air and examining with a pleased smile, was also no longer surrounded by flames._

 _Except for one small piece._

 _A single small fireball was still attached to the weapon, resting directly on the tip of its large spike. However, it was no longer the same menacing purple color it had been before. Instead it shined with a bright blue glow, its edges flickering with silver as it as its form was altered slightly with each passing second._

 _It looked… quite beautiful now the child had to admit. And, though he didn't know why, a small part of the boy felt as though it was calling out to him. He had an inexplicable urge to reach out and touch the flame with his hand. To hold it close and never let go._

 _The boy must have made some sort of noise without realizing it, because the old man turned his gaze back towards him at that moment. His smile grew as he looked at the exhausted child._

" _Oh ho, still awake there boy," he called out to his captive. A dark chuckle burst out of him before he said, "You might actually be tougher than I thought."_

 _The boy gave no response to that statement, too exhausted to speak. He was quite certain even his tears had stopped falling from his cheeks. He didn't feel either happy or annoyed by the evil man's words. It was a struggle to pull his eyes away from the blue fireball and look the stranger in the eyes. He was just… so very tired._

 _His captor didn't seem to mind his silence._

" _Either way… your part in this story is all over," the crowned figure told the boy. As soon as he finished speaking, he once again started moving the axe._

 _As thoroughly exhausted as he was, the boy didn't even twitch at the sudden motions of the large weapon. But he did find his gaze drawn to it. Or rather, the fireball lodged onto its spike. As his eyes followed the weapon's movements, he slowly realized the scary man had no intention of hitting him with the thing._

 _Instead, he merely pointed it at the air behind the child and held it so that the curved blade of the weapon resided directly beside the child. If the child wanted to, he could reach out and rest the palm of his hand against the flat side of the axe's blade. Unfortunately what he really wanted to touch was still out of his reach._

 _The boy's head was in the right position for him to watch as pitch black smoke suddenly erupted from the cobbled street directly behind him. As quickly as it appeared, the smoke took on a roughly oval shape. While the edges of the strange construct retained their smoke-like condition, the interior more closely resembled a swirling mass of black and purple water. Strands of the smoke would peel off the edges, only to fade away into nothingness after climbing a very short distance._

 _At a glance, the boy figured that the object was taller than the mean man holding him off the ground but extremely thin in comparison. A round shadow rested beneath the object, perhaps connecting it to the cobbled street and somehow keeping the thing upright at the same time._

'What… what is that thing?' _the boy wondered, struggling to think the question through his exhaustion. Sleep was becoming increasingly harder to resist and it was only the strange pull the blue fireball seemed to have over him that kept him from closing his eyes._

" _Do try and have a pleasant voyage, child," the stranger suddenly spoke up._

 _Before the child realized what was happening, the armored man let go of his shirt and pushed him towards the strange black construct. Gravity had a chance to assert control over his body and bring it to the ground as the child flew into the black construct and slammed right into its center. A sensation akin to colliding with a large body of water, like a lake or a calm river but much colder in comparison to this stuff, over took the boy as the black thing started to absorb him. In an instant, it became utterly impossible for him to breathe again._

 _Newfound terror erupted within the child's breast but it was too late for him to do anything as the blackness wrapped itself around him at lighting speeds. Tendrils of the stuff started to fill his vision, covering his sight. Before he could even think of struggling, everything start to fade away at fast speeds. His sense of smell, his hearing… everything fell into darkness._

 _The last thing the boy saw was through the black tendrils covering his eyes was the old man looking at him with scorn. The small blue fireball still attached to his large axe and a mob of shadowy figures residing in the mist behind him. Before his vision fully faded, he saw the stranger start to turn away from him._

 _The last thing to go away was the now almost desperate need to touch that small blue flame. When it vanished, the child knew and felt nothing else. There was only the all-encompassing darkness._

* * *

 **Destiny Islands, Early Morning**

 **Present Day**

With all the grace of a charging rhino, a loud groan suddenly erupted from the mouth of sleeping teen. The sudden noise shattered the silence that had enveloped his bedroom throughout the night. Shifting under his blankets, the spiky haired teen laid down on the right side of his body and turned his back to the bedroom's sole window and the rising sun lurking beyond it.

Regardless of the reason why the teen had the urge to make such a sound, it was a clear signal that his latest voyage into the land of sleep and dreams had come to an end. He could already feel the fabric of his blanket on his bare hands and feet. The warmth of the sun's rays touched his face as they filtered in through the window. Both were clear signs that he was returning to full consciousness. Something that went against his current desires.

' _What is so wrong with being allowed to sleep for as long as I want,'_ the teen thought to himself, upset with having one of his favorite activities cut short once again. With his left hand, he pulled his tan colored blanket over his head in an attempt to block out the sun and drown himself in shadows. _'It's too early to get up.'_

Alas, despite his clear desire to return to sleep, his mind refused to allow him to do so. It had received too much energy during the night and was forcefully dragging him to full awareness. After a minute of stubbornly attempting to go back to the land of the dreams, the spiky haired teen realized his quest was a lost cause. Another groan erupted from his mouth at the realization.

' _Fine. I'm up,'_ he thought to himself, dejected.

Twisting his body around so that he would lay on his back, the teen pushed his blanket off his face and shoulders, uncovering the upper half of his body for all the world to see. He was of average height and build for a lad that was roughly fourteen years old. The spiky mess that was his brown hair made him seem taller with how the majority of his spikes jutted in an upwards direction. His skin possessed a faint tan, a result of the long hours playing under the sun with his friends. The tan sheets still hid his waist and legs from view but the boy was clearly wearing a light blue shirt with short sleeves over his upper torso.

Eyelids fidgeting slightly, seemingly stuck together after the long night, it took a few tries before the boy could open his sky blue eyes and glared at the ceiling above him. He had to blink several times to bring clarity and precision to his vision, finding the world uncomfortably blurry when he first opened his eyes.

' _Waking up sucks,'_ the boy thought dejectedly to himself. A soft sigh soon erupted from his throat as he stared at the ceiling, lying on his back with arms spread to the sides.

His friends tended to joke that if he could, the boy wouldn't hesitate to sleep forever. While an interesting thought, the teen in question found that unlikely. There were too many fun things to do and interesting things to one day see.

Speaking of his friends, namely his two closest ones, the teen remembered that this was the day they all agreed to start their secret project. Building a raft in order to set sail and see the world, if not worlds, that lurked beyond the oceans surrounding the Destiny Islands. Even in his still somewhat exhausted state, an excited grin worked its way on the boy's face at the thought of the three of them soon starting a real-life adventure. Just like they had always said they would. Hopefully, it would be the first of many.

Exhaling through his nose, the spiky haired teen thought, _'Well, time to get up and see if mom's made breakfast yet.'_

The thought of food made the boy's stomach rumble and an even bigger smile to work its way onto his face. Waking up after a good sleep might have been a chore, but breakfast always made it worth it in his mind.

Reaching up with both hands, the boy started to lightly slap his cheeks to help drive the rest of his lethargy from his mind. After the third set of slaps, he stopped and stared at the ceiling with wide blue eyes, having found something unexpected. Slowly, he peeled his hands off his face and held them up for him to examine. They were covered in a thin layer of sweat.

"…You've got to be kidding me," the teen spoke to himself, a groan erupting from his throat as he threw his head back and tried to bury it into his pillow. After a moment, with extreme reluctance in his demeanor, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked down at himself.

Sure enough, the teen's sleeping shirt was drenched in his sweat. Its normal bright shade of blue was now a much darker tone then it should be and it clung to his skin in a manner he found slightly uncomfortable. He didn't need to look to know his sleeping trunks were in a similar state and he could see from their new dark sections that large amounts of his perspiration had infected his blanket, pillow, and bed.

"Just great," said the boy, hands coming to rest over the back of his knees as he shook his head. It was an absolutely disgusting scene to wake up to for the teen. Sadly, it wasn't the first time he had done so either.

A small frown worked its way onto the boy's face as he turned his gaze towards his bedroom window. With his house located on the outskirts of the small island settlement, most of what he could see was the great wide ocean that surrounded their island on all sides. The morning sunlight had caused the water's color to become a brilliant orange shade instead of its standard blue scheme. A short distance away, the teen could see the two small islands where he and the other kids would often go to play poking out of the water. The larger one completely dwarfed the smaller one in size.

"It's been a while since this happened," the blue-eyed boy mused out loud, talking to himself while looking at the two islands as if they held the answers for why this occurred during the night. "Maybe… a year or so since the last one."

Reaching up to rub his left forefinger over his chin, the spiky haired teen thought about it for a while before amending his last statement. "No, it was definitely a bit longer than that."

For as long as he could remember, the teen would occasionally wake up to find himself drenched in his own sweat. Sometimes it would be in the middle of the night. Other times, just like today, it wouldn't be until morning when he would discover what had happened. When he was younger, the boy would often feel a mixture of exhaustion and a splitting headache whenever he woke up in such circumstances. Now he felt just the barest hint of a migraine on the back of his skull, one that was fading fast.

As he grew older, much to the boy's relief, these events happened less and less frequently with every year that passed. His adoptive mother and the town doctor figured he was born in a place with a different climate to the Destiny Islands and that his body was just trying to adjust to the humidity in its own way. The teen was willing to agree with them on that account now but when he was younger that wasn't always the case.

As a small child, whenever he woke up like this, the spiky haired boy would feel for a few minutes like something important had slipped through his fingers during the night. The feeling faded over time with each incident and now he didn't have such a sensation at all. But he did have an unpleasant idea about what might have slipped through his fingers during the night back then.

Lowering his gaze to his still blanket covered knees, the teen asked himself, "What was I dreaming last night?"

Pursing his lips as his left knee came to rest against his chest, the teen wrapped an arm around the blanket covered limb and tried to answer his question. Sadly, attempting to recall what he had dreamt only served to strengthen his small headache. Sighing, the boy admitted defeat and said, "I can't remember. Again."

It was another strange piece of these unusual events. In general, the spiky haired teen was a heavy sleeper but he could always recall what he was thinking or dreaming of during the night when he woke up. Not perfectly, but the general gist of it would be right there waiting for him to recall it when he returned to full wakefulness. His mother called it a sign that he had a very imaginative mind.

The nights where he woke up drenched in his own sweat were the only times when he couldn't remember anything he dreamed or thought about while asleep. In truth, the teen often felt like he had only slept for a few minutes instead of several hours when he woke up covered in sweat, though not as much as before.

Like many things in his young life, the teen just lost interest as time passed and he got older. He did, after all, have many more important things to do and think about during the day. What he and his friends were going to do for fun, for example. If there was going to be anything he could do to help around town. And occasionally, what were they going to learn in school today. That sort of stuff.

Today, however, the teen was feeling oddly curious about his lost dreams. Raising his gaze so he could stare at the bedroom ceiling again, he asked himself, "Was I dreaming… or thinking about my past? From before I came to these islands?"

Much like his closest female friend and fellow adventure conspirator, the spiky haired teen was not born on Destiny Islands. At least, that was the common assumption because no one recognized him as a child after a nice woman happened to find him washed up on the shore one day following a rather vicious storm. She had just been taking one of her usual morning walks along the beach and found him lying face down in the sands, wearing badly drenched clothes and completely out of it.

Shocked and scared out of her mind, the woman had wasted no time in trying to rouse him from his slumber. When that didn't work, she scooped him up in her arms and took him to the town doctor as fast as she could. It was not until two days after she had found him that the then small child had actually woken up. But while the doctor had deemed the spiky haired boy quite healthy in the physical sense, there had been a rather morose discovery pertaining to his mind during his medical examination.

The blue eyed child from the beach had no idea who he was, where he was, or where he had come from. His memory before that day was a complete blank slate. Even his own name, the one his biological parents had given him, escaped him. Attempts by the boy to mentally force the issue had failed, resulting only in splitting headaches plaguing his mind whenever he tried. The doctor had hoped that his memories would return in time but after almost nine years it did not seem likely to ever occur.

After his medical exam, when it became clear that no one on the island recognized the newly discovered boy, the woman who saved him took him in as her own son and gave him a new name to call his own.

It was Sora.

There had been no proof to support the theory but most of the townsfolk believed Sora had been on a boat with his original family before he lost his memories. A boat that got caught in, and possible sunk by, the vicious storm which ravaged the islands the day before he was discovered by his adoptive mother. Sora was just luckily enough to get thrown overboard in the chaos and the waves pulled him to the islands before he drowned.

The town doctor was among those people. He believed that Sora's loss of memory, due to him finding no evidence of any sort of bruising on his head during his exams, was a result of trauma from experiencing such a thing at a young age.

To this day, the fact that no one ever came looking for him was a little upsetting for Sora but he tended not to think on it overmuch anymore. While it may seem selfish and thoughtless, Sora no longer cared for who he was before he lost his memories and came to these islands. He was quite happy with who he had become and his life here on the Destiny Islands.

He had good friends, his closest ones being a slightly older silver haired boy named Riku and a red haired girl named Kairi, with whom he had a lot of fun with every day. His adoptive mother was very kind and an amazing cook. The townsfolk accepted him as a part of their small community without batting an eye and loved how willing he was to help around town with all sorts of small chores. And his teachers often made their lessons interesting enough that Sora was able to bear having to sacrifice time better spent having fun in order to go to school.

He wouldn't trade this life for anything. Not even his lost memories, he told himself. And he meant every word.

His adoptive mother decided, at that precise moment, to remind him of her continued existence.

"Sora?" she called out, her voice filtering into the bedroom through the closed door. Lowering his head, Sora was about to respond but she continued yelling before he could even say a word. "Are you up yet? Breakfast is ready? Sora?"

A wide grin broke out on the brown haired teen's face when he heard the news. His mind threw aside all thoughts of what he might have been dreaming and who he was before coming to the islands in order to wonder what sort of meal his mother had cooked for them now. Blueberry pancakes? Waffles? Bacon and eggs? He needed to get down there right away.

As if agreeing with him, his stomach chose that moment to let loose another growl, this one much larger than his previous one. Realizing that he was indeed feeling very hungry right now, and privately very happy his mother had not heard the sound his belly just made, Sora placed his right hand over his abdomen. He held his left hand up to his face and called out an answer to her query.

"I'm up. I'm up. Coming right now," he called out to her, forgetting to mention his currently soaked condition in lieu of both his hunger and excitement. He barely heard her verbal acknowledgement as he threw aside his blanket, uncovering his bare feet and black sleeping trunks.

Sliding his body to the right and twisting around so his feet would go first, Sora sat on the edge of his bed for a second as he pushed himself on to his feet. Having been looking at the floor while doing so, he saw that he almost stepped on some discarded yellow shorts while getting up. Other articles of clothing were also scattered around the bedroom floor in a disorganized mess through which he just barely had enough room to step through.

A small part of Sora thought that maybe his mom was right about him needing to clean the place but it was drowned out by the desire to go and eat breakfast right now. He could always clean later. The food wasn't going to stay fresh for long and a fresh breakfast was the best breakfast.

Quickly putting his feet into a pair of soft black slippers, Sora started heading for the door only to freeze after two steps. He felt like he was forgetting something important again. An almost instinctive pat of his chest with his right hand while he wondered what that was gave him the answer.

Turning to look at the other side of the room, his eyes came to rest on a small corner of his desk. The location where he had left his favorite accessory before going to bed last night. And it was right there waiting for him, exactly how he had left it.

The item in question was a small chain necklace, one slightly large for a boy of his size and build at the moment. Attached to one section of the silvery metal construct was a small pendant in the shape of a three pointed crown.

It had been a gift from his mother almost four years ago on his birthday. Given that they had no clue when his real birthday actually was, Sora and his adoptive mother instead celebrated the day that she had found him as his birthday.

For some reason even he couldn't quite explain, Sora had fallen in love with the object from the moment he laid eyes on it and had treasured it ever since. Aside from school, which had a strict no jewelry of any sort policy, he took it practically everywhere with him these days and only took it off when he was going to bed, swimming, or a shower.

The latter two because he didn't want to risk getting it wet, and subsequently dirty, and the former had been a household rule laid down by his mother. She had caught him sleeping with it wrapped tightly around his neck one morning. Tightly enough that it came dangerously close to choking him. A result of all his twisting and turning that night. Sora had been quite against the idea of sleeping without but eventually relented to his mother's stern command.

The teen frowned at himself, debating over whether to put the thing on or not but ultimately decided not to at this time. He was drenched in his own fluids right now he just remembered and didn't want to risk damaging it. With a reluctant sigh, Sora turned and walked out the door, his mood dampened slightly by what he perceived as an act of betrayal.

His mood did not stay down, however, once the smell of breakfast reached his nose. With a wide beaming smile, he closed the bedroom door behind him and raced down stairs eat. Not realizing he had forgotten to do something other people would say was much more important that deciding whether or not to he should put on his favorite necklace.

"SORA!" his mother shrieked at the sight of him in all his sweaty glory.

He had forgotten to tell his mother about his condition.

Yet even as she rushed over and reprimanded him for not saying a single thing, Sora knew one thing in his heart. Lost memories and strange sleeping problems aside, the teen was completely convinced that life was good and nothing could ever change that.

If only he had known that everything as he knew it was soon going to change completely. And not in a way he would ever expect or welcome.

* * *

 **So, what do you think? A little long, I admit, and I think the mystery thoughts/dreams Sora is trying to recall is pretty obvious to you, the readers, at this point. Next chapter we will be exploring the prologue of Kingdom Heats, The Dive To Heart. As this is fanfiction, I will be adding in my own twists and turns to it as I write.**

 **That said, I will be accepting submissions for OC heartless. I feel like making the number of heartless Sora will fight a lot more diverse and already have a few lined up. Feel free to submit them in the reviews in a format like this.**

 **Name: Shadow Hound**

 **Appearance: it resembles the Guard Hound seen in Final Fantasy: Dirge of Cerberus in body shape. Its head is a longer and more traingular version of the Neo Shadow heartless and the whip-like construct on the Guard Dog's back has been removed. Instead, this heartless has a long whip like tail. It is a Pureblood heartless so it lacks an emblem and is completely black in color, except for its glowing yellow eyes.**

 **Abilities: a purely physical heartless, it charges forward at high speeds to perform speedy tackles or claw at Sora and friends with its forepaws. Beware its long tail. It can not only function as an effective whip when the Shadow Hound spins in place, it can also latch onto people's limbs and toss them a considerable distance. Like the common Shadow heartless, it can also sink into the ground and become invulnerable to attacks as it moves about.**

 **World(s): Traverse Town, Wonderland, Deep Jungle, Olympic Coliseum, Hollow Bastion, End of the World**

 **All OC heartless will receive a sheet similar to this at the end of every chapter they first appear in. If you are submitting a heartless I like and decide to use, please submit a name for yourself in reviews so I can give you credit for the idea.**

 **Thanks for reading, I'm off to get started on the next chapter.**


	2. Chapter 01

**Wow, I really wasn't expecting so many people to favorite and follow my story within the first week of its debut. Nice to know I am on the right track.**

 **Anyway, here comes the next chapter of Kingdom Hearts - Awakened Fate, which will focus on the Dive To Heart or prologue of the first Kingdom Hearts game as some people still call it. Enjoy, I worked hard to get it out within a week of the previous chapter as a result of so many people deciding to favorite my story.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the any characters or creations of Final Fantasy franchise, the Kingdom Hearts franchise, or the Fire Emblem franchise. This story was created for the express purpose of providing entertainment for fun and a chance to improve my own abilities as a writer.**

* * *

Kingdom Hearts – Awakened Fate

Chapter 01 –A Strange Dream Began at Mid-Day

 **Several Days Later,**

 **Unknown Location, Unknown Time**

Within a vast expanse resembling an endless black void stood a single tall pillar. Cylindrical in shape, its true length was unknown for much of it was swallowed by the darkness. And on the flat ceiling of that pillar, which was painted to carry a wonderfully crafted image of a beautiful woman in a yellow dress, was Sora.

The spiky haired teen was utterly exhausted yet unable to find rest for his weary form. He was, after all, stuck in a fight for his life.

His assailants consisted of a group of creatures the likes of which the island raised boy had never seen before in his life, whether in reality or in fiction. But they sure felt real to him now, after the numerous times they had managed to scratch and stab him with their small claws, and they were absolutely relentless in their pursuit of the spiky haired teen.

"Back off," Sora barked, his voice filled with frustration as he swung his recently acquired weapon at the closest of his assailants.

Holding the weapon with his right hand alone as it was swung in a wide arc, the blue eyed teen managed to strike two of the strange critters at the same time with the thing's bladed edge. The first creature burst into rapidly dissolving black smoke upon contact with Sora's weapon. The second however, merely reeled back as if stuck in the head with a wooden club instead of a sharp blade, with no sign of a scratch or scar anywhere on its small obsidian colored form. Sora pressed the advantage, not giving the beast time to recover.

Twice more he struck the creature, grasping his weapon with both hands as he did so. Both blows landed squarely upon the creature's round head and, like its twin, the beast burst into black smoke in a manner that vaguely resembled a popping balloon to the teen. The smoke itself faded very quickly before Sora's blue eyes while he panted in exhaustion.

Unfortunately, the teen still didn't have any time to catch his breath or celebrate his latest victory. More of those monsters were heading towards him right this second, every last one of them looking completely identical to the beast he had just destroyed. The teen scowled at the sight, quickly lifting up his weapon and holding it defensively before him.

He swatted at the nearest monster, striking it once and driving it back as a single question resounded in his mind. _'Even if I get past these things, how am I supposed to take the big one down?'_

It was a morose thought that had been plaguing Sora ever since his latest match with these strange creatures had begun. The quite frankly enormous monster standing in the center of the painting was probably more than capable of squashing Sora flat with a single blow. Its right hand alone was bigger than Sora's own body after all. The spiky haired teen liked to think of himself as a brave and confident young man – some of the adults, his adoptive mother included, would not hesitate to call him reckless and stubborn - but he was currently balking at the impossible looking task lying before him.

His dark thoughts cost Sora as one of the smaller creatures managed to get past his guard and stab him in the side of his left leg. The teen cried out in pain at the physical contact as a painful burning sensation overcame the area where he was stabbed and his leg buckled beneath him. He barely managed to reach out with his right hand in time to stop himself from falling flat on his face. Wildly swinging outwards with his left arm, Sora tried to slash at the monster but it had already pulled back and out of range.

Another one of the strange critters leaped onto Sora's back from behind the teen and drove him face first onto the mural below him. He landed hard on his cheek. The teen cried out as he felt one of its small claws poke him in the back. Another one, possibly the one that had stabbed him in the leg just now, slashed him in the adjacent shoulder before his latest scream had managed to die down. And apparently satisfied with its new perch, the creepy thing on Sora's back stabbed at him again with one of its small claws.

' _Got to get this thing off of me and back on my feet,'_ the spiky haired teen thought through the pain, wincing as the beast on his back stabbed him for a third time with its small claws.

If he stayed pinned to the ground like this he was toast. The others wouldn't hesitate to surround him and cut him to pieces. Wanting to avoid that, Sora pushed his body to the right and started to roll on the pillar's ceiling in order to get the creature off him. He failed to crush the small monster standing on his back beneath his body like he hoped and simply rolled over the thing but he still succeeded in removing it from his back so that was enough for Sora.

After lying down for a moment, panting for breath, Sora pushed himself up with his arms and leaped to his feet. He froze for a second when he saw how close he came to both rolling and leaping off the edge of the pillar and his blue eyes looked down at the darkness below, the tips of his bare toes poking out over the edge. As with every other time he happened to see this sight, the usually brave to the point of recklessness teen decided it was not a good idea to see how far of a drop it really was for curiosity's sake alone.

Turning away from the edge, Sora cried out as one of the creatures struck him in the stomach, the small beast having run up to him while his back was turned. He was so distracted by the sight of the plunge that he didn't even hear it coming. The spiky haired teen just barely resisted the urge to take a step back, which would have caused his foot to go over the edge of the pillar if he did so. Having to keep himself from falling off the pillar while fighting these creatures was something Sora did not need to deal with at this time.

Grunting, the teen raised his sword high and brought it down hard with both hands, practically cleaving the creature before him in two with the weapon when it burst into smoke upon contact with the blade. Sora lunged at the next monster, wanting to go on the attack and get away from the pillar's edge. Swinging his weapon with his right hand, he knocked the beast aside with a single blow.

Before he could press the advantage, another one of the monsters jumped at him from the side, forcing Sora to duck under its small form. He retaliated by changing targets and striking this beast in the back with his weapon three times in quick succession. It burst into smoke at the end of the combo.

Quickly turning around, Sora did a visual head count of the small creatures with his eyes. He ignored the big monster for now, and not because he found its size intimidating. The brown haired boy that the small ones wouldn't hesitate to attack his back as a group if he tried to fight that oversized monster without taking them down first. It happened already, when they first joined the fight. The critters needed to be dealt with before Sora could even contemplate going after the goliath.

' _Four more to go,'_ Sora told himself, once he was done with his careful observation of his opponents, the blue eyed teen trying in vain to steady his breathing all the while.

His eyes narrowed when he saw two of the small monsters do a weird trick of theirs before his eyes once again. Somehow, the creatures could flatten themselves on the pillar's ceiling and become akin to dark shadows with glowing yellow eyes upon the flat surface. They moved slightly faster whenever they were like that instead of running on their own two feet. The pair were approaching him ahead of the other two, with the lead one trying to circle around the teen and get him from either the side or the back.

Having already seen this trick before, Sora didn't bother trying to run up to the creature and stab it while it was like that. They never reacted when struck while in such a state and his blade would always rebound off the pillar's unyielding ceiling with enough force to nearly hit him in the head while simultaneously numbing his arms. He kept his eyes locked on the beast though, cautiously turning to the side and planning on striking the thing as soon as it peeled itself off the primarily yellow colored image.

A large gust of wind moving over Sora's head brought that plan to a halt. Turning his gaze in the direction he felt the wind come from, Sora saw that the large monster was no longer going to wait for him to finish off its minions. It had gone down to its knees and was bending over slightly, seemingly hugging itself with its long arms and covering the majority of the large hole in its torso with the act. The sight of it like that caused Sora's eyes to widen in panic.

"Again," Sora cried out, aware of what the creature meant to do.

Before the teen even had a chance to consider how to respond to this development, something small and sharp struck him in the side of his stomach, driving his attention away from the obsidian goliath while bringing a cry of pain out of the teen's lips as he stepped back on instinct. Looking down, the spiky haired teen saw that the small creature he had been planning to confront had used the opportunity provided by Sora's distracted state to walk up to him and stab him with one of its claws.

Feeling another gust of wind blow over his head, a signal that the larger creature had uncrossed its arms behind the blue eyed teen and was about to launch its own attacks up him, Sora quickly retaliated against the small creature. He slashed at it three times with the curved form of his weapon and, once he was done attacking, the creature burst into rapidly fading black smoke like all the others.

Twisting sideways in preparation for the large monster's attack, Sora realized he was too late as his blue eyes caught sight of a large ball of swirling white and purple energy just before it slammed into him. The energy sphere exploded upon contact with the red and black clothed teen, the explosion carrying enough force to knock him off his feet.

He landed painfully on his right arm but scrambled quickly to get back up, rolling to the side to get away from the location where he had fallen before pulling himself to his feet. Another one of those spheres slammed into the section of the painting he had been lying on, the resulting explosion nipping at the teen's feet as he moved further away from that spot.

Expecting the large monster to fire more of those attacks, Sora started to run around the image in hopes of escaping them. One of the small creatures was directly in his chosen path however, perhaps trying to head him off, so Sora was forced to stop and slash at it with his sword. To his surprise, it burst into smoke at the first strike but the teen figured he must have hit it two times at an earlier point in the fight without getting the chance to finish it off back then.

That little stop almost cost him as the brown haired teen saw another one of those strange white and purple spheres flying at him out of the corner of his eye. Bending down, Sora managed to leap over the thing at the last second though the small explosion caused by the sphere striking the painting generated enough force to disrupt his balance in mid-air. He landed ungracefully back on the painting, tripping over his two feet and falling to one knee. It was only by quickly planting his left handed on the mural below him that the spiky haired teen kept himself from falling flat on his face.

One of the two remaining small critters came at him from the side as he pulled himself to his feet, stabbing Sora on his right hip as he rose. Crying out, the teen stumbled and just barely managed to keep himself from falling back down.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw that the larger monster was pulling itself back to its full height and realized it was done blasting at him for now. Just like before, it only fired three of those spheres at a time before standing up. Which ultimately gave Sora time to deal with his latest attacker and its sole remaining brother without having to worry about being blasted in the back.

Rolling to the side to gain some distance from the monster that had just attacked him, Sora quickly pulled himself to his feet and swung his sword at said monster as it leaped at his face. Steel blade and sharp claw made contact in the air, with both Sora and the creature recoiling from the impact. Sora was much faster at recovering, and after taking a hold of his sword with his left hand, he slashed at the creature while it was still in mid-air until it burst into smoke.

' _Where's the last one?'_ the teen demanded of himself spinning in place as he looked for it.

By sheer accident more than luck, said creature had been leaping at him at the time and he swatted it out of the air with his weapon. The action surprised Sora enough that he nearly dropped the bladed tool. Recovering quickly, the teen chased after the small monster and, with both hands now grasping his weapon, delivered two quick strikes that caused the thing to burst into smoke.

Huffing and puffing, Sora felt a small grin work its way on his face at having defeated another batch of these strange monsters. His third one to be exact. The grin fell off his face when he remembered what he had to do now.

"…All right. Now for the big guy," Sora announced, sounding as confident about his chances as he felt. And who could blame him for considering this a monstrous task.

Turning back to face the tall beast, Sora's blue eyes widened when he saw that the monster had pulled back its right arm in preparation for a punch. What appeared to be purple flames and black shadows were swirling around the fist attached to the end of the oversized limb. The teen instantly started moving to the side even before the creature threw the punch but it was an unneeded gesture.

The beast had not been aiming for him at all. The flaming fist landed slightly to the right of Sora's previous position with surprising speed behind its movement, the impact generating a small shockwave that seemed to disperse the flames and shadows swirling around the large hand. Having braced himself for it, Sora managed to stay on his feet with a little effort.

Turning to look at the newly planted limb with the plan to slash at it with his weapon, Sora froze when he saw what appeared to be a small circular shaped pool of black and purple liquid had spread out from under the hand and was covering a small portion of the pillar's beautiful mural.

And from that pool, Sora witnessed another one of the small creatures he had just vanquished appear. A second such monster was climbing out right after it. And then there was another appearing to the left of that one, with more coming up after the trio as Sora looked on with wide blue eyes.

That sight was the last straw for red and black clothed teen's already razor-thin patience.

"Again! Are you kidding me?!" the thoroughly infuriated and exhausted teen cried out, holding his left fist up at his eye level and shaking it at the monsters. The creatures, both the small ones and the giant, didn't react in the slightest to the gesture or his words, not that he cared.

Neither was actually being aimed at them.

Throwing his left arm to the side in a slicing motion, Sora turned his blue eyed glare upwards and gazed at the shimmering white light far above his location, hovering like the moon in the night sky. Aside from it and the pillar he was standing on, everything else was covered by the utterly black void that surrounded them.

"What's this all about?! How much more do you expect me to fight?!" the teen yelled at the distant light. "What do you want from me?!"

* * *

 **Earlier That Day,**

 **The Destiny Islands, Just Past Noon**

It had been several days more than a week since Sora had awoken covered in his own perspiration and the spiky haired teen had yet to suffer through a similar event whenever he went back to sleep in the days and nights that followed. Fortunately for him, he had a shower after breakfast so none of his friends saw him in said ridiculous condition when he went to hang out with them during the day. He had been teased enough as a child to feel a little sensitive about it even now.

His adoptive mother had forced him to clean his bedroom before he left though and she had no problems with observing him from the doorway to make sure Sora did as he was told. It had been punishment for surprising her like he had.

Sticking to the plan the three of them had agreed on, work on the raft had begun that very day as soon as Sora, Riku, and Kairi had gotten to the sibling islands and slipped away from their other friends. The three of them had already found a spot where they could construct their creation in peace because it was a place rarely frequented by the other kids or any of the adults when they came to the islands.

All three of them pitched in to bring the project together when they could. Of course, being young teenagers in the middle of summer vacation, they didn't have the attention span to work on it all the time during the day, never mind that they had to spend time interacting with their families and other friends to avoid their secret being discovered. Or, as was the case in the past with Kairi's adoptive father, someone getting the wrong idea about what they might be up to.

Despite that, the trio made excellent time over the past few days and now had only three things left to do to complete their project. This included, of course, gathering food and water for the voyage the day before they set sail. An event that was looking like it might occur as early as two days from now at the pace they were going at. Something that honestly excited the three of them to no end.

If Sora had his way there would only be one task for them to do right now besides collecting the supplies and that was finding a cloth large enough to act as the raft's sail. Kairi, on the other hand, felt that the raft was still too small for the three of them at its current size and that they were going to need more room to themselves during the voyage. Thus, she was most insistent that they add more logs to the base of the raft.

Knowing how stubborn Kairi could be once she set her mind to something, Riku and Sora had simply shared a look between themselves, shrugged their shoulders, and quietly decided to humor her simply to avoid an argument. The sight of them acting in such a manner had rewarded the two boys with a pout from their red-haired friend.

The three of them had split up soon after to accomplish different tasks. Riku said he had an idea on where they could get a cloth to act as the sail and went to find it. Kairi, meanwhile, went looking for more rope to help fasten the sail and the additional logs she requested to the raft, having discovered that with her suggestion they didn't have enough spare cords on hand for their upcoming modifications.

Which left Sora, by process of elimination and the simple fact that there was nothing else for the spiky haired teen to do to assist in the raft's creation, with the task of collecting the additional logs Kairi was after. The one job the spiky haired boy disliked the most out of all the others he had to do over the course of their shared project. There was nothing fun about having to carry a heavy object around the larger of the two islands while avoiding being seen by anyone else that was present on said island at the time.

With a reluctant sigh, Sora set about his assigned task. The brown haired teen managed to find several decent looking logs for the raft scattered about. After bringing back seven of them, and making sure to be as sneaky as he could while doing so, the boy decided he had earned himself a break. Since neither Riku nor Kairi had come back to the raft at the time for whatever reason, there was no one around to stop him from taking a nap while he waited for them to return.

With his mind set, Sora had gone down to the beach and chosen a spot that was far enough away from the ocean waves for him to rest without worrying about the salt water coming into contact with his body while he slept. He decided to stay away from the shadows of the nearby palm trees, wanting to feel the sun on his face. After pulling up the hood of his primarily red jacket in order to keep the sand out of his hair, Sora had set himself down on the warm beach and promptly fallen asleep.

He wasn't quite sure how long he had just been lying there on the sands, his mind completely blank and empty of dreams for once as he rested, but his peaceful slumber had eventually been disrupted like all the others before it. Quite suddenly and without any warning whatsoever this time.

 _Wake up._

Blue eyes snapping open in surprise at the voice echoing through his mind, Sora expected to find himself lying on the beach with one or more of his friends looming over him, a smirk or a frown on their face. That would be so typical of them, especially Kairi, Tidus, and Wakka.

However, Sora instantly realized that was not the case this time.

For one thing, the teen was no longer lying down on his back. He had stood up at some point without realizing it during his nap. A very unusual occurrence for the teen given that Sora had never before been prone to sleepwalking in his entire life from what he could remember. He rarely even tossed and turned in his bed while sleeping, his body simply lying still on its back or its side.

But that was nowhere near as unusual as discovering that the islands, all the islands, and surrounding ocean had somehow disappeared from sight. They were instead replaced by a black fog-like void that expanded indefinitely in all directions around him.

"What is this?" the teen wondered aloud, alarmed by the sight yet strangely calm all the same as he turned his head from side to side to make sense of what he was seeing. All he saw was infinite darkness expanding in all directions around him, no matter which way he turned his head.

The sight of his new surroundings brought a surge of panic into the boy's heart but it had been beaten down before he had a chance to be fully ensnared by it. And it wasn't him that forced the feeling down. It was more like the emotion had struck an unyielding wall while rising towards his heart and had rebounded back to the depths from where it had come from before it could reach its destination, leaving Sora a little rattled but calm as he took in his strange surroundings.

Looking around and still seeing nothing but darkness on all sides, Sora asked himself, "Am I still dreaming?"

He had to be. It was the only explanation for how he could have been transported to this strange place. Turning his gaze downwards, Sora saw darkness below him as well and that he was still wearing the clothes he had on him when he fell asleep on the beach.

He was barefooted as was his preference, finding shoes and even socks to be horribly confining on his feet. He could never explain why he hated shoes but Sora loved feeling the grass and sand between his toes when he walked across them so he was barefooted as often as possible. He even liked the feeling of solid wood and cold stone beneath his bare feet. His mother tried to get rid of this habit by introducing him to sandals but Sora grew to dislike them just as much as shoes. He could bear wearing the sandals and shoes for long periods of time, such as school, now but felt he would never grow to like it as much as walking around barefooted.

His legs were encased in skin tight leggings that ended just past his calves with a single hoop going over the center of his foot, leaving his toes and heels bare for all the world to see. Over this, he wore mostly crimson shorts that fell down past his knees and were tied to his waist by a blue belt with a square shaped metal buckle. The shorts were black at the end of their legs, the dark color separated from the brighter red hue by thin white lines. A similar white line marked the entrance to each of his shorts' side pockets while a small chain with stylized links resembling three pointed crowns fell from and returned to his belt in a U-shaped line on the outer side of his left leg, the chain's descent stopping slightly above his knee.

Sora wore a sleeveless black shirt with a wide collar, allowing his favorite crown pendant bearing necklace to rest proudly around his neck for all the world to see. He kept it tucked into his shorts. He also wore a small primarily red colored open jacket that didn't extend past his belt. The jacket was outlined in black and possessed black shoulders outlined by with white lines on the ends while its short red sleeves barely managed to reach Sora's elbows. The crimson hood of the jacket was stylized with two small eye-like black patterns, one on each side.

Finally, his hands played host to a pair of fingerless black gloves with a bright yellow band resting over his wrists. A thin black arm warmer climbed out from his left hand glove and reached up just slightly past his adjacent elbow, the end of it vanishing within the sleeve of his jacket. It was adorned with a bright crimson dragon's head, which rested over the middle of Sora's forearm.

Realizing that he could somehow still see himself despite being surrounded by darkness, Sora wondered how that was possible. He found his answer when he turned his head up and discovered a small source of white light was far off in the distance above. Its size and appearance reminded Sora of a star in the night sky though this light was clearly much brighter given how its illumination managed to reach him where he stood. Without it, there was a good chance Sora wouldn't be able to see a thing right now.

"This is weird," Sora said, wondering why he didn't feel more alarmed with his circumstances. Pinching himself on the visible skin of his right arm, the boy hissed a little at the ensuing pain and wondered if this really was some sort of weird dream. His never included the ability to feel pain before. But what other explanation was there for this strange place. "I don't think I ever imagined a place like this," the teen told himself.

Looking around again, he frowned and commented, "Could use a bit more scenery though. There doesn't seem to be anything here but me."

His frown deepening as he continued to look at the black void surrounding him, the teen lifted up his right foot and took a short step forward. He froze when he heard something crack, the sound coming from directly underneath him. His blue eyes turning downwards Sora slowly lifted his right foot and found what appeared to be small cracks in the darkness he had just stepped on, a faint emerald glow emerging from them. Odd, he was pretty sure he didn't hit anything hard enough for that to happen or even felt the cracks form beneath his foot now that he thought about it.

Without warning, the cracks suddenly started growing in size, spreading outwards and the stretching sideways at a rapid pace below him. The light they were emitting grew in strength the larger the cracks became and it was soon so bright that Sora was forced to shield his eyes with his forearms in response. Heedless of this, the cracks and the light they were emitting continued to grow beneath him.

"What is this?" Sora demanded of no one in particular, barely noticing that the light actually possessed a soothing feel to it as it shined up at him. He might have found it relaxing if the light wasn't so bright that it threatened to blind him if he looked at it.

' _It is way too bright,'_ he thought to himself, turning his face away from the emerald glow to further protect his closed eyes. As if in response to his thoughts, the teen felt more than saw the light suddenly decrease to manageable levels below him. The sound of the cracks increasing in size also faded away as the light faded.

Breathing a sigh of relief at the fact that he could finally see again without running the risk of going blind, Sora lowered his arms and opened his eyes to see what he had just uncovered in this strange place. The sight caused his eyes to widen and his mouth to fall open in silent wonder.

"Wow," he instantly exclaimed in surprise and awe at the sight.

With the darkness removed from directly below him, Sora found that he was standing near the edge of a large disc upon which resided an exceptionally well-crafted painting. Primarily green in color, the painting depicted a beautiful woman several years his senior holding a bright red apple towards her face. She seemed to be asleep and in possession of pale skin, black hair, and a dress that was blue over her torso and yellow at the skirts.

A large circle consisting of white flowers in a field of green was directly below her in the center of the image. The section reaching up behind her torso, however, was cut off by another circle. Within this one resided five more circles in an upturned U formation around the woman's upper body. Rimmed with green, each one of these small pictures depicted a hooded fellow with a unique beard and facial expression, though one of them had no facial hair at all. Two more such circles rested over the flowers on either side of the woman, depicting the faces of two more such individuals. None of the seven looked alike, each was their own person though all were clearly male.

Three outlines circled around the image, with the disk bearing the five faces cutting into each one of them and turning these outlines into curving U-shaped formations instead of complete circles themselves. The first and thickest of the trio consisted of a curving green row of yellow circles, within each of which resided a small forest animal painted white and outlined in black. These animals ranged from squirrels, to chipmunks, to small birds, and in one circle, the hooded and leering face of an old hag for some reason. The second outline consisted of small curving brown tinged rectangles, each bearing two green leaves in a loose V formation. The last outline resembled two lines of very thin curving green bricks.

While no painter himself, Sora had to admit that this was quite likely the most beautiful and finely crafted piece of art he had ever seen. The woman especially seemed so real that if she weren't lying flat like a shadow on the surface of the painting he would honestly think she was alive right now.

 _So much to do, so little time…_

Sora nearly jumped in place, drawn away from his observation as an unfamiliar voice suddenly breached the darkness and silence that surrounded him without warning.

' _No, not a voice,'_ the brown haired teen realized. There had been no sound at all yet somehow the teen felt as if someone was speaking to him. The words they were saying just popped directly into his head, bypassing his ears entirely.

"Who is there?" Sora called out, looking up only to see the lone white star so very far away. Twisting and turning where he stood just below the painted woman's feet, he saw nothing to indicate he had company in this strange place. There was nobody else there with him as far as his eyes could see.

 _Take your time. Don't be afraid._

The voice, if it could be called that due to its lack of sound, continued as if Sora had never called out to it. Irritation started to bubble in his chest at that as Sora never liked it when people ignored him. The emotion was beaten down by an invisible force before it got too strong though, leaving Sora's mind unclouded by emotion once again. He wondered what that was about but he had a bigger concern.

"Show yourself," Sora called out, still twisting and turning in place. Still he failed to find anyone else in this strange place. As far as his eyes and ears can tell him, he was completely alone here. "Let me out of here!"

 _The door is still shut._

"What door?" Sora asked, almost demanded, while turning his gaze back up to the light above as if it held the answers he sought. What was the voice talking about now? "Where am I? What is going on here?"

 _Now, step forward. Can you do it?_

"Step forward? That's it?" Sora asked, a skeptical tone to his voice as he blinked at the suggestion. He didn't doubt for a moment that he could perform something as simple as walk forward from his current location.

The question is, was that all? More importantly, what was going on here? What did this strange soundless voice actually want from him? And how did he get here in the first place if this wasn't a dream? And if it was, where was the voice coming from?

With a small frown on his face, the spiky haired teen decided he had no choice but to play along, hoping that he would soon wake up and discover this was all part of his imagination. He hesitantly took a single step forward with his left foot.

Nothing happened.

His frown deepening at that, Sora took another step and then another step. The only thing to breach the darkness was the faint sound of his bare feet slapping against the surface of the painting as he marched across the well-made image. As he stepped directly into the center of the painting, the spiky haired boy was about to call out to the voice again and ask what it was after, having had enough of this charade.

He never got the chance to speak up as the entire image started to rumble beneath Sora before he could open his mouth, forcing the brown haired teen to focus on keeping his balance instead of shouting into the thin air. As the image shook beneath his feet, the vibrations steadily increasing with every second that passed, three circles forged of white light appeared close to its round edge. Each was in a different location and it took Sora a quick glance at all the lights to see that they were forming a triangle formation around him, with his body currently in the center of it.

Looking up at the light directly before him as he fell to one knee in response to the increasingly powerful vibrations, Sora watched as a small pyramid shaped pedestal fashioned from grey stone and possessing a flat top rose up from the light. A quick glance over his shoulders at the other lights showed the same thing happening in each location.

Once the newly emerged pedestals had fully revealed themselves, the light at their base faded away and the disc shaped platform stopped vibrating beneath Sora. The pedestals were wide enough for Sora to easily stand on their heads but barely came up to the middle of his stomach, a height he could easily reach with a single leap once he was close enough to them. Their flat tops were decorated with a single spike rising out of each corner. The sides of the pedestals were carved to resemble a crown amongst a field of leaves.

"Okay, what now?" Sora asked, pulling himself to back up his feet as he spoke. To his surprise, the voice decided to answer him this time. Or perhaps it had been about to speak anyway only for the red and black clothed teen to do so first.

 _Power sleep within you._

There was a sudden flash coming from the pedestal to Sora's left and he turned to watch as an actual bow suddenly appeared out of thin air, hovering directly said pedestals by a short distance and slowly spinning in place. The weapon was slightly shorter than Sora was tall and its grip was bright orange in color. Its arching wooden limbs, which possessed a reddish brown tint, were carved to resemble the rearing necks and opened mouthed heads of dragons. Within each mouth was a bright orange painted carving of a small flame. A similarly colored emblem in the shape of a flame rested on both sides of each limbs, just above the grip. Instead of a string, a thin faintly glowing beam of orange light connected the back of each dragon head to one another.

 _If you give it form…_

Another flash, this time from Sora's right caused him to turn and watch as a different weapon appeared over the pedestal there, hovering diagonally as it slowly spun in place. It was some sort of staff, the light blue shaft of the weapon slightly longer than Sora was tall and decorated with thin silver lines running along its length in a hexagonal pattern. A large blue dragon head rested on each end of the staff. The head closest to the pedestal was clutching a thin curved blade slightly thicker and shorter than Sora's forearm between its jaws. A blue emblem shaped like a curling wave was painted on the flat side of the blade. The other dragon head held a large shimmering orb that seemed to be filled with constantly swirling water and blue light.

 _It will give you strength._

One final flash appeared directly in front of Sora and he turned to observe the sword now hovering directly in front of him, spinning in place above the last pedestal. Its pale yellow handle was long enough to be held with two hands and wrapped in a crisscrossing manner by light green cloth while its golden cap was carved to resemble a snarling dragon head, a small ring of emerald string hanging from its closed jaws. Three small golden pendants shaped like tornados hung from the cord. The weapon's thin golden guard resembled a flattened cloud and connected the hilt to the blade of the sword. The blade itself was about the length of Sora's arm and curved slightly while possessing only a single sharp edge. Along the flat sides of the blade there were white symbols that resembled wisps of wind running up the length of steel, three on each side.

Sora frowned at the sight of this sword, noting that its design was very different from the wooden swords he would often use while playing and occasionally fighting with his friends. Theirs possessed rectangular blades with a pointed tip and the guard consisted of two long handles sprouting under the blade. He wondered why this one was so different in design. He had never seen a sword like it before in his life, much less such a heavily stylized bow or staff. Before he lost his memories, at least.

However, he still found the sword to be very beautiful from where he stood. All three of these weapons were beautiful he realized after a quick second glance at the other two.

 _Choose wisely._

Sora's eyes narrowed slightly as he felt those last two words enter his mind, disrupting his admiration of the weapons before him while bringing him back to the matter at hand. Namely that he was trapped in a strange dream, or maybe an actual place, with no way out and a desire to go home.

"If I play along, will you let me out of here?" Sora called out, directing his question to the soundless voice as he looked up at the lone star-like light in this strange place. There was no response from the speaker, whose gender the teen just realized was completely unknown to him.

"…Figures," was Sora's response to the silence. Shaking his head, the blue eyed teen crossed his arms and considered his options while he looked down at his toes.

It didn't take him long to come to a decision over which weapon, or power as the voice called it, to pick. He had never had an opportunity to learn how to use a bow before as such things were no longer present on Destiny Islands. Being such a peaceful place there really wasn't a reason for a single real weapon to reside there. And if Sora was honest with himself, he wasn't interested in learning how to use one.

He might have fought and played a few times with one of the long rowing paddles that were available in abundance but it had always been difficult for him to keep from tripping over the thing in those cases. Sora knew he hadn't gotten any better over the years and so was reluctant to take up the staff, which was of a similar length to the rowing paddles.

With that knowledge in mind, his blue eyed gaze returned to the only weapon he probably had some idea how to actually use given how often he would play and fight with a wooden one. The sword merely waited patiently for him as it twisted slowly place above its pedestal.

"…Guess my only choice is to move forward after all," Sora spoke out loud to himself after a moment of looking at the thing, referring to his situation with his words. He started towards the weapon with calm, easy steps.

A quick leap once he was close enough brought him on top of the pedestal and he shivered slightly when the bared skin of his feet made contact with the cold stone. Easily pushing his discomfort aside, Sora looked up and his blue eyes trailed along the length of the weapon before him.

It looked even more impressive up close than it had from a distance. Without realizing that he was smiling at the sight of thing, Sora slowly reached out for the weapon's hilt with his right hand only to stop as the silent voice spoke to him just before his fingers could curl around the hilt.

 _The power of the warrior. Invincible courage. A sword of terrible destruction._

 _Is this the power you seek?_

"Yes," Sora verbally responded, closing his right hand around the weapon's hilt as he spoke. He didn't need to go over his other choices again. This was the weapon he chose.

As soon as he finished speaking and took hold of the sword, the weapon was consumed in a bright yellow light and vanished from sight. "What gives? You asked me to choose," Sora called out, looking at the lone star above.

 _Your path is set._

"It is?" Sora wondered, raising a brow. How could that be if the weapon had just disappeared from his grip? The voice continued on as if he had never spoken.

 _Now what will you give up in exchange._

Frowning, the spiky haired teen said, "Give up? You mean throw away?"

He didn't bother waiting around for an answer he knew by now was never going to come and instead turned to look at the two remaining weapons from his perch. The answer didn't come as easily to Sora this time if only because he had no reason to dislike either weapon more than the other. In the end, the brunette decided to "give up" the one he was least likely to ever bother to learn how to use.

Leaping off the pedestal, he started walking towards the one with the weapon he picked. After taking three steps however, a sudden thought enter Sora's mind and his eyes couldn't help but fall upon the edge of the painting as he came to a halt. After a second, he turned around slightly in pace and started walking to the edge, wanting to see what lay beyond it. Stopping a step away from the rim of the painting, Sora leaned forward and looked to see what lay below.

He had not been expecting to discover that he was standing on the flat ceiling of a large cylindrical pillar that seemed to stretch on and on forever, its form so long that it was eventually swallowed by the darkness below. The sheer scope of its size caused Sora to abandon any idea of leaping off the painting to see what happens as an act of defiance to the strange voice. That was just too deep a downward plunge for him to consider safe and he regularly leaped off the waterfall on the play islands in order to go for a swim in the small lake below.

Returning to his previous course, Sora crossed the remaining distance between him and his target. Once he was close enough to it, he leaped onto the bow's pedestal. Just like before, the voice called out to him right before his fingers could grasp the weapon by the handle.

 _The power of the hunter. Ruthless precision. A bow of furious retribution._

 _You would give up this power?_

"Yes," Sora declared, nodding his head while his fingers closed around the handle of the weapon. Like the sword before it, the bow vanished in a flash of golden light as soon as he touched it and verbally affirmed his choice.

This time, Sora did not bother asking anything of the voice, having come to believe by now that it would ignore any questions he had. To his slight surprise, it silently spoke to him anyway as he turned to regard the center of the painting in preparation for what came next.

 _You've chosen the power of the warrior. You've given up the power of the hunter._

 _Is this the form you choose?_

' _One last chance to back out and change my mind, huh,'_ Sora thought to himself, looking up at the staff from where he stood on the now absent bow's pedestal. He was somewhat curious about what the voice would say about that weapon but knew he would pick the sword as his weapon of choice anyway so there didn't seem to be much point in going back on his choices only to repeat the first one again.

"Yes," Sora answered the voice, nodding his head as he spoke. He slightly wondered how much the mysterious speaker could actually see of what he was doing.

He didn't have long to ponder that thought because the pedestal suddenly gave way beneath Sora, sinking into the mural beneath it in an unbalanced manner. Caught off guard, the red and black clothed teen slipped on its now slanted surface and fell off, landing hard on his hands and knees upon the painting below. He just barely managed to keep himself from slamming his face into the image as well, an act that would have likely broken his nose.

Pushing himself to his feet, the spiky haired boy was just quick enough to see what remained of the three pedestals vanish from sight, the remnants of the circles of light they were falling into vanishing as well right after they disappeared. And then the pillar he was standing on started to shake beneath him once again, far more violently than it had before.

"What now?" Sora demanded of no one in particular, unable to climb to his feet with all the shaking going on. A large cracking sound came to his ears and the brown haired teen turned to where he thought he heard it originated from.

He wished he hadn't as before Sora's very eyes, starting from the furthest portion of the pillar's round edge and coming towards him at high speeds was destruction itself. The entire thing for no reason that Sora could see was shattering into many thousands upon thousands of small glass-like shards that were being swept away by a wind the blue eyed teen could neither hear with his ears nor feel with his skin.

"Wait. Wait. Wait. Wai-" Sora cried out, raising his arms before his face as the same invisible force from before pushed down his latest surge of rising panic. If a small part of him actually thought his voice and hand gestures would stop this unexpected event he was wrong.

His cries and actions completely went unheeded as the pillar broke apart directly beneath him, leaving him standing on empty air in the black void. The rest of the pillar soon shattered into tiny glass-like fragments as well before the spiky haired teen could even consider reaching for it in hopes of stopping his fall.

And the Sora was in fact falling, his body angling on its own so that he plunged headfirst towards the darkness waiting below while the shards around him winked out of existence one by one, like candle flames that had just been snuffed out.

"…Well, this sucks," the blue eyed teen thought to himself with a small pout, strangely calm despite the unusual and possible dangerous event. He couldn't decide if he liked having his emotions kept in checked like this or not. Though there was a slight undercurrent of irritation beneath the calm.

As he plunged down into the darkness, the teen wondered why this happened and figured he had in fact done something wrong during what must have been some sort of odd test. Was he supposed to pick another weapon out of the options presented to him the entire time or did he fail simply by deciding to choose? What kind of test was that then?

Even as his young mind struggled to find an answer for his newest set of questions, Sora's teenage body continued its downward plunge. It didn't take him long to realize, or at least suspect, that he wasn't actually plunging at an alarming rate to wherever he was going. The air resistance was far too weak in comparison to what it had bene like whenever he was diving head first into the lake or ocean while going for a swim. Based on that, he must be going down much slower than he had during those times.

Not that he could actually tell how far he was falling when all he saw was the same amount of dark void on all sides. He could try looking at the white light above, but considering how far away it was before, the teen didn't feel that such a choice would be a very helpful observation. It could be the air was just different here after all.

The spiky haired teen also had no way to confirm how long he had been falling as well because he lacked a watch and possessed no alternative means of reading or seeing the passage of time in this place. Just as he grew bored enough to entertain the idea that he would wake up as soon as he hit the bottom, a flash of something blue down below caught his attention.

Tilting his head further back, the teen saw that the flash was not a figment of his imagination and that there was a faintly shining blue dot far off in the distance below him. And that it was growing larger and larger, the further he fell.

' _Is that where I am going?'_ the spiky haired teen asked himself, a small frown on his face. The answer became obvious when he came close enough to the blue object to see that it was the painted surface of another pillar, exactly like the previous one in terms of shape and width.

The painting on top had a similar theme and style to it as the previous but it was also was different in color, being primarily a mix of blue and purple. Like the previous one, it featured a beautiful woman several years older than Sora. This one was blonde of hair and dressed in a sparkling silver dress while appearing to be frozen in the act of walking with her eyes closed. The partially obscured circle in the center of the image and directly behind her showed a winding blue staircase in a black void.

The second circle behind her, the one located behind her torso and head, was purple in color with a white edge around it and the interior decorated with the outlines of pink hearts between the six smaller white rimmed circles it carried. The images within resembled shadow-like white sketches of different objects on a black background. The two circles to either side of the woman's arms were of a horse and a large pumpkin with a hole in the middle, while the one directly behind the woman's head contained a small crown. The final three images were of different portions of a castle, possibly the same one, and the clouds nearby taken from different angles and positions.

Like the previous painting, this one had three outlining patterns that were partially cut off by the circle behind the woman's head and torso. The first and thickest was series of purple circles holding dark pink colored shadow paintings of a man and a woman in different poses during a dance. Every fourth image in line, however, featured a silver tinted glass slipper instead. The second outline consisted of small curving brown squares with two pink leave forming a rough V-shaped formation within each square. Finally, the entire image was outlined by two curving rows of thin pink bricks.

As he slowly descended towards the ceiling of the new pillar, Sora felt an invisible force gently take hold of him and turn him upright. When he landed on the mural covered surface, he landed feet first in a manner that suggested he was being gently put down by something much larger than himself. Almost like a cherished toy being carefully put on the shelf. The comparison did not amuse him.

"All right," Sora called out, an annoyed expression on his face and an equally annoyed tone to his voice.

For some reason, he felt more frustrated than he had a moment ago. No, that was wrong. Whatever had been keeping his emotions from consuming him had loosened its hold slightly during its descent. It was still there but not as strong as before, allowing some of the frustration he was feeling to actually reach and affect his heart and brain.

Looking back up the way he had just come, the teen called out to the strange voice and asked, "What do you want me to do now?"

His eyes falling upon the sole source of light in this strange place as Sora spoke, they briefly blinked in surprise at the sight of it before narrowing. It may be his mind playing tricks on the teen, but Sora was certain that the lone star above was a little bigger than it had been before.

But how could that be? He had been falling downwards after the first pillar broke apart and that should have taken him further away from the light, not closer. If anything, it should be smaller than it had been before.

A sudden weight appearing out of nowhere in his left hand forcefully dragged Sora's gaze back to his location and nearly threw him off balance as well. Just before the weight had taken root in his hand, the teen could have sworn he saw a brief flash of light out of the corner of his left eye. Looking down at his hand to find out what was going on, Sora was surprised to discover that he now held the curved sword from before.

 _You've gained the power to fight._

Sora barely noticed the words enter his head as he held the blade up to examine it up close with his own eyes. It was definitely the same sword from before. The fourteen year old boy made the mistake of bringing his right hand too close to the blade during his examination and accidentally cut his finger slightly on the edge.

"Ow," Sora cried out, feeling genuine pain from the action and seeing a small drop of red blood blossom on the digit. He quickly put the abused finger into his mouth to suck on it and made sure to keep the sword pointed away from himself. _'Note to self, this thing actually is a real sword. Not a toy.'_

For the moment, the thought of finally getting his hands on a real weapon brought a burst of excitement to his chest, diluted though it was by whatever force was keeping his emotions in check. His elation was soured in the next instant with the mental reminder of how quickly he had injured himself with it, completely killing any delight he felt at having finally gotten his hands on such a thing.

 _Focus._

The silent voice was the same as ever, giving no sign to whether it was male or female, much less whether it was annoyed or amused by his recent mistake. Sora didn't care and his blue eyes trailed down the length of his weapon again, wondering why it chose to appear in his left hand instead of his right. A sudden thought struck him.

' _Does the voice know I was originally left handed?'_ the teen thought to himself, his eyebrows rising.

After he lost his memories and came to live on the islands, the spiky haired boy had primarily used his left hand for regular everyday things like opening doors or writing. Muscle memory and habit, the doctor had called it when Sora asked him about that. As for why he had gone to the doctor in the first place, it hadn't taken long for Sora to see that all the other kids his age used their right hands for such things.

Sora couldn't help but feel a little weird and excluded despite the assurances of his mother that it wasn't the case, much less something to be ashamed of. He wasn't able to shake the feeling when he was younger so he practiced until it became habit to use his right hand over his left. He hadn't quite fully managed to break the habit, often switching to his left on moments where he was going through an extreme burst of emotion, but he did become fairly ambidextrous as a result. Sora had yet to discover any actual benefits from it other than that suddenly switching which hand was holding his toy sword occasionally helped surprise the other kids when they were playing or fighting.

Either way, Sora gave the curved weapon a test swing with his left hand and found that it weighed roughly twice as much as the toy sword he normally used. Still, despite the increase in weight, it wasn't too heavy for him to use it one handed, never mind both. He could fight with this, the teen decided as he pulled his right hand away from his mouth, the cut on his finger gone.

Sora calmly took hold of the weapon with both hands and held it in front of him, the tip pointed upwards in a vertical direction. Stepping forward with his right foot, Sora quickly raised the blade overhead at the same time and brought it down in a two-handed swing. Letting go of the blade with his left hand, he slashed upwards and to the right of his body with his right arm.

' _Yup, I can definitely use this,'_ Sora thought to himself, pulling himself up to his full height with a satisfied grin as he one again looked over the sword. The voice chose that moment to speak up and it seemed to agree with his assessment.

 _All right. You've got it._

 _Use this power to protect yourself and others._

' _Protect myself? From what?'_ Sora asked himself, doubting the voice would respond to the question if he spoke it verbally. He did get an answer to his query though, just not in a manner he expected.

Before his very eyes what appeared to be small shadows started to appear on the mural, fading in from nowhere in spite of a lack of shadowing casting object on the pillar's ceiling. As the teen looked on from his position a short distance away, Sora saw the shadows become almost pitch black in color and actually peel themselves off the painting, revealing themselves to be something completely different to his surprise.

They were actually small black creatures barely half his size that stood with a perpetual stooped bearing. Their torsos were roughly in the shape of a tear drop and from its base sprouted two short thin legs that ended in large flat feet that lacked any sort of toe. Slightly shorter arms sprouted from further up their bodies, ending in small three fingered claws instead of hands. Their heads were large and round, with two long twisted antennae on top.

The creatures seemed to lack anything resembling ears, a mouth, or a nose but they possessed two glowing yellow eyes at the front of their heads. The sight of that caused Sora a sense of discomfort he couldn't quite explain. The voice might have sensed this for it spoke to him then.

 _There will be times when you have to fight._

 _Keep your light burning strong._

"You want me to fight… these guys?" Sora asked the voice, bewildered. There were twelve of these things standing before the blue eyed teen but they didn't look so tough to him on account of their size. And what did it meaning about his light at the end? Sora wasn't glowing or holding any sort of light creating object, was he?

In spite of his feelings about how dangerous these things were, one of them leaped across the distance separating Sora from it with surprising speed and landed on his left arm, clutching at his shoulder. Before he could fully adjust to the new weight, the creature stabbed him in the shoulder with its claw and Sora cried out as a painful burning sensation spread from where the tips made contact with him.

Spinning in place in an attempt to dislodge the creature and make the pain stop, Sora managed to shake off the beast and quickly looked at his shoulder. To his surprise, there wasn't even a tear in his clothes to indicate that he had been hit. Were it not for the fading sensation that he had just been in direct contact with something sharp and scalding hot, he wouldn't have any proof that he had been hit at all.

But he definitely felt anger at the strike, no matter how diluted it was by whatever force was keeping his emotions in check, and he glared at the thing with narrowed blue eyes. The creatures were all perfectly identical but Sora knew this was the same one that had just attacked him because he had seen it land there after he threw it off his shoulder.

"My turn," the teen decided and he quickly closed the distance between him and the small beast, swinging his sword with both hands as he did so.

He struck the creature in the head once, then a second time. Both without leaving a scar despite the sharp edge of his blade. Then again, given its obsidian skin, how could he tell if he scratched it and, as a monster, if it possessed blood like a human. At the third strike, the creature seemed to pop like a balloon and turn into a cloud of black smoke that rapidly faded away before his wide eyes.

"…Okay, that happened," the teen commented to himself at the sight. A sharp pain in his lower back brought him back to the situation at hand and he staggered forward, crying out as he did so. He knew that one of the other monsters had snuck up behind him and slashed him in the back with its claw while he was distracted.

Not having time to confront that monster because he saw another one of these strange creatures running at him from the side, Sora spun to meet the newcomer instead. Swinging his sword with both hands as he turned around, the brown haired teen succeeded in knocking back the charging creature and another one of its kind that had gotten too close. Stabbing forward, he struck the creature he saw running towards him in the head with the tip of his blade and then struck it again with a two-handed downward slash. Like the one before it, the creature burst into black smoke on the third hit.

' _Three hits to win then,'_ Sora thought, leaping over another one of the monsters as it tried to stab him in the side. He had just barely caught the thing out of the corner of his eye and he gave it a parting stomp on the head as he took off. _'I think I can do that.'_

As he landed, another one of the small critters leaped at his face. The action caught Sora off guard and his reactionary swing flew wide, allowing the creature to slam into his face. Its claw nicked the side of his forehead, causing just the briefest surge of pain to the teen, as the small creature's weight bore him down onto his back. Slamming the creature in the side with the pommel of his weapon out of desperation knocked it off Sora's face before it could stab him while he was down.

Sadly, in his new position, Sora was unable to see and react as three more of the beasts came at him together and stabbed him near simultaneously, each in a different location throughout his body, with their claws. One got him in the base of his right foot, another on his left hip, and the last one stuck him on his upper right arm. Sora thrashed in pain from the blows, his sword swinging wildly around him and hitting one of the beast's by accident at one point. It didn't deter the other creatures and one of them stabbed him in the left side of his body as he writhed on top of the blue painting.

' _I need to get up,'_ Sora thought to himself, knowing he was in serious danger like this, and he had just the move to use. The spiky haired teen wondered if Riku knew that Sora had copied one of his favorite tricks, the Counter Roll as Tidus had dubbed it one day, but it wasn't important at this time.

Lifting his legs off the ground, Sora curled his body into a ball and pressed the tips of his toes down on either side of his head, squashing them slightly between his skull and hands. Pushing up with his arms, Sora managed to lift himself off the mural covered ceiling of the pillar while rapidly straightening his legs as he ascended. Flying forward in a small arc, the teen pushed back one of the black creatures with his feet just before he came to land on them. Straightening quickly and once again holding his curved sword with both hands, he followed up on the assault and struck the creature before him repeatedly with the weapon. Like the others, it burst into black smoke on the third strike.

' _Three down, nine more to go,'_ Sora thought to himself.

Knowing he was surrounded and that he had no time to cheer over the fact that he got another one of the strange monsters, Sora let go of the blade with his right hand and spun around in a circle while throwing his left arm wide. He felt the blade nick at least three of the strange creatures and the maneuver managed to give him some breathing space.

Or so he thought until one of them snuck up on him from behind the moment his spinning attack ended and stabbed him in the lower back while he was recovering from the slight disorientation the maneuver caused him. Crying out in pain and surprise, the teen staggered forward slightly.

He would have turned around to face the critter that just struck him but Sora saw another one standing in front of him and went after that one first, not wanting to expose his back to it. To his surprise, this creature burst away after being struck twice but he figured he must have hit it earlier at some point.

Turning to look behind him, Sora passed his sword from his left hand to his right hand as he saw one of the creature's leaping at him from a short distance. He swatted the blade downward as the creature descended towards him, knocking the monster out of the sky and it bounced off the mural slightly when it made contact with the pillar's ceiling. A quick downward stab into its torso caused it to burst into black smoke.

"Who's next?" Sora challenged, his words barely discernable as they came it in an angry growl. He turned to look at the remaining monsters, counting their numbers with his narrowed blue eyes. _'Seven to go,'_ he affirmed.

An eyebrow rose when he saw two of the small beasts sink into the ground and become as flat as shadows again. They started to move towards him in a circling motion as if they meant to try and get behind him while moving slightly faster than when they were walking on their own two feet.

"Not going to work," Sora called out and swung downwards at the closest of the trio with both hands holding his weapon. That proved to be a mistake.

 _Clang._

The sword hit the creature dead on its back but simply rebounded back as if it hadn't been lying there between the weapon and the pillar's ceiling. Vibrations flew up Sora's arms, numbing them as the blunted edge of the weapon nearly flew into his face. He just avoided that by leaning to the side. As it past his head, the teen lost his grip on the weapon and it fell out of his hands, landing a short distance away from him and close to pillar's circular edge.

' _Not good,'_ Sora thought. Regardless of whether or not it could hear his thoughts, the mysterious voice seemed to agree with the sentiment.

 _Get it back._

"Oh, now you decide to talk to me," Sora retorted as he ran after the weapon, the movement helping to remove the numbness from his arms. The voice didn't respond to his comment.

At any other time Sora would have probably scowled at it but he was stuck in a fight against real monsters with very sharp claws that could actually hurt him. It was time for him to face facts. This was very likely not a dream he was stuck in.

Despite wanting to know how he came to be here, the red and black clothed boy pushed that question to the back of his mind for the moment, given the situation he was currently stuck in. And he needed to get his sword back if he wanted to win, and likely survive, this fight.

For the first time since he came here, the blue eyed boy was grateful for the odd blockade on his emotions. Having never been in a real life and death situation before in his life, the teen could feel panic just waiting for the chance to rush up and take ahold of his heart only for the strange force to keep it down, enabling Sora to focus on what he had to do.

One of the flattened creatures started to peel itself off the painting between Sora and where his blade had landed but the teen merely leaped over it and continued to run. He felt more than heard another one of the creature's leap through the air behind him, likely trying to tackle him in the shoulder but missing because he was moving too fast.

Intentionally falling to his knees, Sora slid across the remaining distance between him and the sword, coming to a stop just before the edge of the pillar's ceiling. A quick glance down showed that the structure was just as tall as the previous one and he once again decided he had no desire to see how far he would fall if he went over the edge. Especially since he was now certain this was not a dream.

Grabbing his sword with his right hand, Sora rose to his full height and stood up, ready to get back into the fight. And not a moment too soon for another one of the creatures had leapt at him from the side. Sora tried to swat it out of the air with his sword, hoping to knock it over the rim of the painting with the strike. He missed but was throwing himself forward as he swung so the creature sailed harmlessly past him. Reaching out with his left hand, Sora performed a quick roll across the painting and rose to his feet in time to get stabbed in the knee by one of the creatures.

Hissing out in pain at the contact, Sora raised his weapon overhead and brought it down hard on the creature. It buckled under the force of the blow, allowing Sora to hit it with two more swings of the sword. Like the others, it burst into smoke upon the third strike.

' _Six down, six to go,'_ Sora mentally counted, huffing slightly as he let go of the sword with his right hand.

Seeing one of them peel itself off the painting to his left, he started running towards it. After several steps, Sora leaped into the air and swung his sword at the creature as he descended. The blade stuck it square in the face and the monster burst into black smoke while the sword rebounded off the pillar's ceiling, nearly striking Sora in the face again while his arm vibrated as a result of the impact.

Another one of those monsters came at him from the right while he tried to get his left arm under control and slashed him in the side with its claws, a cry of pain bursting from Sora's lips as he doubled over from blow. Switching sword hands, Sora performed a backhand swing with his right arm and struck the creature with enough power to force it away from him. Before he could press the advantage the thing turned itself into a flat shadow on the mural covering ceiling. The teen decided not to risk hitting it with the blade of his weapon and instead tried to club it with the dragon head pommel of the sword. The blow landed squarely on the monster's head but it didn't react in any way to the strike that Sora could see and continued moving away from him.

' _Okay, do not hit them when they are like that anymore. Got it,'_ the spiky haired teen thought to himself, turning his head to look at the others.

He cried out in surprise when he saw one of them leaping at his face and sidestepped the attack just in time for the black critter to sail harmlessly past him. His next target chosen for him, Sora ran after the creature and unleashed a trio of right handed sword swings at its back. The monster burst into black smoke under his furious assault and teen quickly turned back towards the remaining creatures.

' _Four to go,'_ he thought to himself, noticing that he was starting to feel tired, further evidence that this was not some weird dream he was stuck in. He never felt tired in his dreams. _'The pain has felt pretty real too so far.'_

Lost in his thoughts, the spiky haired teen didn't notice until almost the last second that two of the creatures were running towards him. The closest one stabbed at him with a small claw but he managed to block it in time with his sword. The second one decided to leap at his face to cover the remaining distance between them so Sora ducked under the creature as it sailed overhead. The one directly in front of him stabbed him in the stomach with its other claw as he tried to straighten his posture, causing the startled teen to step back as he cried out.

Its partner chose that moment to leap on his back and stab him in the back of the head with its small claw, a combination of surprise and pain bringing Sora down to one knee. His descent seemed to shake the creature off of him, perhaps due to a lousy grip at the time. The brown haired boy retaliated with a sword swing, striking the one directly in front of him with his weapon. He pressed the advantage, climbing to his feet, and struck the strange critter two more times, the monster bursting into smoke as the second one landed.

Unfortunately for Sora, he leaned in just a little too close to the monster this time and some of the smoke flew into his eyes. Crying out in surprise and pain at the sudden burning sensation affecting the blue orbs, the teen reeled back and clutched at his face with both hands. He barely managed to keep a grip on his sword as he did this. He barely resisted the urge to claw at his face in hopes of relieving his eyes of the burning sensation now afflicting them.

One of the monsters seized on the opportunity to leap at him from the side, stabbing him in the shoulder as it flew past, and knocking the teen down onto his side. Peeling his hands away from his eyes, Sora saw another one of the monsters coming at him through the tears that threatened to spill and lashed out in frustration, striking it in the face with his sword. It burst into black smoke at the contact.

"I've had enough of this," Sora barked, his heart consumed with frustration at what was happening despite the blockade on his emotions. The teen pulled himself to his feet, unaware that his blue eyes were now glowing faintly.

After wiping at his face to remove the liquid around the orbs, Sora looked up at the light staring down at him from above and called out to the silent voice. "Do you hear me? Enough! Get me out of here!"

The voice did not respond and nothing happened to grant the teen his wish, causing Sora to grunt in dissatisfaction a moment later. Seeing that he only had two more of the things to fight and wanting to end this nightmare as fast as possible, the teen went after the nearest one and physically struck it with his sword. It burst into black smoke on the second hit, the blue eyed teen making sure not to lean too closely this time lest he hurt his still slightly stinging eyes further.

"One more to go," Sora cried out, turning to face the last monster, which was standing in the center of the painting. He started running towards it but never got the chance to confront the creature.

A pitch black circle suddenly appeared beneath the monster and Sora stopped his advance at the sight of it. He watched with wide eyes as the creature, rather slowly, fell into the dark circle as if it were a hole that had just appeared in the center of pillar's ceiling. Sora's eyebrow rose at the sight of the event, wondering what that was about. Was it running away? The frustrated teen decided that he was fine with that.

' _Guess that's twelve,'_ Sora thought to himself as the faint glow vanished from his eyes without him noticing while he lowered his sword. Without any sort of warning or signal, the weapon suddenly disappeared from his hand in a flash of light, surprising the teen.

"…Okay, now what?" the teen wondered, frowning at the disappearance of his weapon. He started to scratch his hair with a hand out of frustration and turned to regard the center of the painting.

His scratching motions froze when he registered that the black circle which had swallowed up the last monster was still there. It had grown slightly in size while his eyes were turned away. And Sora saw that it was no longer alone as other such circles had appeared in different locations around the painting, slightly different from one another in terms of size. And they were stretching outwards and joining together with those closest to them, forming a smear of black over the blue painting.

Growing alarmed, Sora looked behind him and saw that several more such circles had emerged behind him while his back was turned and that they also were in the process of stretching outwards and joining together. Looking frantically around, the spiky haired teen saw that the black spread now covered just over a third of the painting's surface.

"What's going on here?" the teen demanded of the voice, which did not respond.

Frowning at the silence, Sora decided to take a closer look and bent down slightly to look at the nearest section of the darkness. He frowned slightly when he saw that it wasn't completely black paint that was trying to cover up the image beneath his feet. Rather, it was a swirling mass of black and purple liquid.

The sight of which, for reason's Sora could not explain, caused quite a surge of fear to suddenly burst towards his heart. Almost too much for the hold on his emotions to stop it. A cold sweat broke on his face as Sora stood up to his full height and edged away from the liquid, a single thought echoing in his head though he had no idea why.

' _I have to get away from that. It's bad.'_

Unfortunately for Sora, the dark liquid had already covered over half of the painting in a sporadic manner and it was continuing to spread out beneath his feet. He was already surrounding by some of the liquid, standing on a lone blue hill amongst the darkness. Still wanting to get away from the strange fluid, Sora looked about and saw another uncovered, slightly larger, section of the painting was a small distance away. It was farther than he had ever tried to jump before the spiky haired teen was desperate enough to try.

Bending down as far as he could, the teen leaped towards the other section of the painting, putting everything he had into the action. It wasn't enough.

The blue eyed teen fell short of his target, his feet landing amongst the swirling black and purple muck and instantly sinking up to his knees as he cried out in horror. He tried to reach out to the uncovered section of the painting with his right arm but it was just out of reach. Meanwhile, his body started to slowly sink into the murky liquid, which now covered over three fourths of the painting.

"No, no, no, no," Sora verbally protested against the idea of drowning in this stuff, whatever it was. He wasn't quite screaming and he had no idea what it was about this strange liquid that scared him but that didn't matter at the moment.

His body thrashed almost wildly, arms swinging in every direction as he continued to sink beneath the dark surface of whatever this stuff was. His desperate struggles were for naught. His legs had already been completely submerged despite his desperate attempts to pull himself out by clinging to the air and now his belt had vanished beneath the dark liquid.

The knowledge only made Sora struggle harder but that just seemed to make him sink even faster. Soon, he was submerged up to his shoulders, staring up at the light ahead and reaching out for it as if he wanted someone to suddenly pop out of it and pull him clear of the murk. It didn't happen.

"No," the teen said one last time, just before his head sank beneath the dark waves, his right arm following behind shortly after. And when his face fell into the stuff, all he saw was darkness.

* * *

 **And cut. That's a wrap folks.**

 **I originally intended to go over the entire prologue section of the first game but this chapter was growing too long as a result. Veterans of the kingdom hearts franchise will probably recognize the battle in the front section of this chapter as belonging to the final section of the prologue, which will take place next chapter. I am hoping to blitz through the Destiny Islands portion of Kingdom Hearts 1 before I reach chapter ten so I can get to Traverse Town and start writing the fun stuff.**

 **The prologue itself was inspired by Final Fantasy XV, which had a small not-quite fight prelude to one of the game's later stages where the party would confront a certain boss with fire based powers. I know it only extends for the next chapter instead of something further along in the game but I wanted something a little different for my rendition of the Dive To Heart.**

 **If you didn't just breeze through the description of Sora's outfit, you probably noticed that I replaced his original outfit from Kingdom Hearts 1 with a modified version of his outfit from Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. His outfit in Kingdom Hearts 1 was one of my least favorite things in the game and franchise so I replaced it with one of my favorite ones with some changes. The circles on the back of his gloves have been removed, along with the pouches on his shorts legs, the x-symbol on his shirt, and his oversized yellow shoes. His shorts' legs have been extended slightly past his knees as well and they are not quite as baggy as in canon while the grey section of his coat has been repainted red. If you need help picturing the symbols on Sora's hood, look up Medusa Gorgon from Soul Eater and imagine the ones on her hood being half their size. If you want to picture the dragon symbol on his arm warmer, look up Aedra's cove guild logo on deviantArt and repaint it red in your head. His ears are still the same as in canon Kingdom Hearts and he is slightly closer to Riku in terms of height here.**

 **For the choosing of the weapons, I replaced the Mickey symbol - which I still have no idea why it was there in the canon prologue other than a shout out to Disney - with a dragon motif, and each weapon was given a different element and color scheme. The new staff was a pain to write until I took inspiration from the weapon used by One Autumn Leaf in King's Avatar. I replaced the shield as well with a bow.**

 **Personally, I always picked the sword whenever I went through this stage of the game. In canon, the weapons each represented three important stats for Sora - strength by the sword, defense by the shield, and magic by the staff. In this story, the weapons represent what - to me - since Birth By Sleep appear to be the three main forms of combat with the keyblade - standard melee fighting represented by the sword, magic represented by the staff, and shotlocks represented by the bow. Sora's decision to give up the bow was a reference to how he does not learn/use shotlocks until Kingdom Hearts 3. It was also something of a reminder of how in canon for Fire Emblem Fates, Corrin has a sour first meeting with Takumi when he arrives in Hoshido.**

 **Finally, the changing grips on his sword was something that just came to mind as I wrote this chapter and it was inspired slightly by Transformers: Fall of Cybertron and how you could change which hands were using the weapon. I planned for him to be ambidextrous from the start and originally left handed but once I started playing Kingdom Hearts 3 on Thursday and got to the point where I could switch keyblades in mid-battle I fully decided to incorporate it just to give something new. Besides, there are far too many protagonists that are naturally right handed as it is right now. We got a brief hint that Sora has another power besides the keyblade in this fic but that won't play a large role until much later in the story.  
**

 **For the fighting scenes, I wanted to stress the fact that Sora is for all intents and purposes at lvl 1 right now. A complete rookie with no experience fighting large groups of enemies or being in a real fight. Fighting with wooden sticks against friends is something completely different from being in a life and death battle. His struggle to feel his emotions at the start of his Dive To Heart was inspired by how silent and calm he was during the prologue of Kingdom Hearts 1 as well as his words to Kairi about what it was like falling into the darkness before she brought him back. Thus I decided to incorporate the idea that there was a force inside of Sora keeping him from feeling too much emotion during the start of his Dive To Heart because he was too deep into the darkness. The closer he gets to the light and the subsequent end of the dive, the less that force will apply to him. kind of like the training wheels were slowly being peeled off as the danger increased so to speak.**

 **Anyway, that's it for now folks. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I am off to get some fresh air and enjoy the rest of my day before starting the next chapter, which I will aim to release his weekend. Need to get back to Kingdom Hearts 3 as well. I got past the first two worlds and am currently on the second. I think the fact that I prefer to grind Sora's levels and fight the final boss at Lvl 100 is slowing me down again. Combat as Sora is great but I am still unsure how I feel about the new gummi ship system.**

 **Later all.**


	3. Chapter 02

**Hello there folks and welcome to the latest chapter of Kingdom Hearts - Awakened Fate.**

 **In answer to your question on the last chapter Banjofan, we will indeed be seeing limited involvement from FE characters in this story. And if I decide to add any before the sequel, they will likely not be from Fire Emblem Fates. That's part of the reason why this thing is not in the crossover section. Besides, if you think about, Kingdom Hearts series is at its core a crossover production with its own unique story at the heart of it considering how it combines elements from other Square Enix and Disney productions. The second reason is that the system isn't letting me. I can't find the post this story in crossover section button or control. It only let me select one category while posting this story online.**

 **Anyway, a few words of forewarning for this chapter, which will feature cameos from some special guests. If you want to know what kind of coats they are wearing before hand, it is not a modified version of those used by Organization XIII. Look up Addam from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and you will see where I took my inspiration for the designs.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the any characters or creations of the Final Fantasy franchise, the Kingdom Hearts franchise, the Disney Franchise, or the Fire Emblem franchise. This story was created solely for the express purpose of providing entertainment for fun and the chance to improve my abilities as a writer.**

* * *

Kingdom Hearts – Awakened Fate

Chapter 02 – The Nightmare Continues

 **Some Time Later,**

 **Unknown Location,**

Devoid of both sight and hearing, Sora grappled blindly with his limbs in a desperate attempt to claw and kick his way to freedom. He had no idea how much time passed since he was submerged in the darkly colored liquid, the appearance of which had sparked a still inexplicable feeling of discomfort in his chest. The young islander didn't know why the mere sight of that strange water made him anxious and did not care at the moment. Unraveling said mystery was less important than getting out of wherever he was currently residing.

What the spiky haired teen did know was that he might as well have been attempting to grab and climb on air itself for all the good his struggling has brought him so far. He felt utterly weightless and it was impossible to even tell if he was still descending somewhere or just floating in a single location. But while an increasing sense of exhaustion threatened to bring his frantic efforts to a halt, the spiky haired teen refused to just give up and surrender the fight.

He wanted out of this strange place and nothing was going to stop him from going back to the islands. From going back to his home and friends. He had a promise to Riku and Kairi to fulfill.

' _Not like this,'_ Sora thought, still swinging his arms and feet. _'I am not going out like this. Do you hear me?'_

 _Calm down._

The red and black clothed teen froze as soon as he heard the silent voice speak to him again, those two words echoing in his head. He was about to try and respond to whoever the voice actually was when his blue eyes caught sight of a faint light in the distance. The spiky haired boy didn't know what it whether it was the light's actual size or an extreme amount of distance from Sora's body that caused it to appear as small as a pinprick in the dark to his eyes. But as he continued to look upon it, the brown haired teen could see that the newly arrived light was steadily growing in size and strength.

As he watched the new source of illumination, Sora felt his back and limbs gently collide against something flat and solid behind him. The object didn't seem to budge as he came to rest against it and it was a little cool to the touch while possessing a very smooth surface. On instinct, the spiky haired boy started running his hands and feet against the object to find out how large it was. An action that soon led to the discovery that whatever Sora was now resting against stretched out farther than he could reach with his four limbs.

' _What's going on now?'_ Sora wondered, feeling a mixture of confusion and annoyance at this new turn of events. Whatever force had been blocking his emotions earlier was still inside him, preventing the swirling feelings form overwhelming his mind. However, it seemed to have grown even weaker. _'This place is just too weird.'_

While the young islander silently made that declaration to himself, the small light kept on increasing in both size and shine before his blue eyes. Eventually the brown haired teen was forced to momentarily look away as a result of its growing strength, closing his eyes on reflex as he turned his head to the side.

A few moments later, feeling that the light had steadied itself and would no longer attempt to blind him if he opened his eyes, Sora looked back towards it. His blue eyes widened when he saw how much the light now resembled the white star-like glow that had been shining down on him before, when he was standing on those two large pillars. He had a feeling that this was actually that exact same source of illumination.

The only difference from before was that it had once again grown larger than when he last laid eyes on it, reaching almost twice its previous size. The change confounded Sora for he was certain that he had again been going downwards and away from the light instead of up and towards it when he was swallowed by the strange black and purple liquid.

' _What is up with this place? Monsters. Weird lights. Silent voices. What's next?'_ the confused and exasperated teen thought to himself. At the way things were going, he wouldn't be too surprised if some giant tentacle covered horror was going to suddenly appear out of nowhere and attempt to eat him.

Trying to once again understand this strange place, along with how and why he came to be here in the first place, only served to give Sora a splitting headache. The red and black clothed teen was growing less and less convinced that this odd roller-coaster series of events was still some sort of weird dream. He didn't believe his sense of imagination to be this dark and sporadic.

Groaning slightly in discomfort form the sudden migraine assaulting his mind, Sora closed his eyes and slowly tilted his head back until it made contact with the unknown structure he was pressed up against. He winced slightly at the impact, more out of surprise than actual pain, and the collision reminded him that he was no longer floating endlessly in the dark.

Merely opening his eyes once again in order to look at the familiar and enlarged star-like light source was all the teen needed to do to understand that he was currently lying on his back instead of standing upright. This was likely a result of his attempts to climb out of the no longer present clearly absent black and purple liquid. While submerged in the strange water, he must have twisted his body until he was no longer falling feet first while struggling to pull himself out of there. Given how he had been feeling utterly weightless, along with blind and deaf, there was no way he could have noticed his body's shifting in position like that at the time.

This was assuming of course that something as profound as which direction was up and which direction was left had not become jumbled in this bizarre void during Sora's unwelcome stay here. Given everything else that had happened to him after coming to this place, the blue eyed teen supposed that was still a potential possibility. An unlikely one, but still a possibility.

' _Wait. When did I stop feeling that strange liquid around me?'_ the brown haired teen wondered, recalling his decent into that mixture of black and purple water.

It had been rather cool to the touch at first, when it was trying to swallow him up. During his descent however, there had been nothing but empty air around Sora for as long as he could recall it. The change had occurred without him even noticing the difference. Thinking back on it, Sora suddenly realized that he had still been able to breathe without issue when the murky fluid finally swallowed him up, his lungs never feeling like they were going to fill up with water at any time.

'… _This place is even weirder than I thought,'_ the spiky haired teen ultimately decided, unable to come up with an answer to the latest series of questions this location brought to his mind.

A small noise that was a mix between a frustrated growl and a pained groan erupted from the spiky haired teen's throat. Running a hand through his spiky mane, the island boy resolutely decided that now was not the time to consider the answer to any of the questions running wild in the back of his mind. He could look back on everything that happened here after he was out of this strange place and safely back home.

The young islander refused to even consider the possibility that he might be indefinitely stuck in whatever this place is. There was a way in, even if he got here without intending to or knowing how, so there had to be a way out. Sora just had to find it. And he wasn't going to do that by simply lying on his back.

The red and black clothed boy let out a weary sigh as he removed his hand from his hair. A second later, he threw himself up into a sitting position. His right hand was pressed against the cool surface of the object beneath him in order to hold him up while the teen's left forearm came to rest on his left knee as he took a look around.

Looking upon the object that had stopped his second descent through the darkness, Sora felt his eyebrow twitch at the sight of it. Even through the still present blockade on his emotions, he felt a large wave of annoyance attempting to dominate his heart upon discovering that he was sitting on another circular portrait. The flattened image was most likely resting on the flattened ceiling of another tall pillar.

Looking upon the mural covered surface, the island raised boy saw that while this painting had the same overall artistic style as the previous two before it, its theme was a little different. There was no woman present in this one after all.

Instead, the circle in the center of the image was dominated by the large black shadowed profile of some sort of horned and winged creature. Starting from the tips of its horns, the shadow extended down as far as what might have been the monster's chest or stomach before it was cut off by the first of the image's three circular outlines. Any details such as the colors of its eyes or skin were completely blacked out.

In contrast, the background behind it was painted to resemble a bright orange sky, the expanse decorated with a few scattered crimson clouds of differing shapes and sizes. A bright yellow sun was looming behind the shadow's head and upper neck. Melded together, the mixture of gold and black paint almost gave this unknown creature its own variation of a lion's mane.

There was no large circle bearing a group of smaller circles lurking on the upper half of this painting. And with the shadowed creature being much smaller than the painted women from before and lurking exclusively within the circle dominating the center of the whole image, the three outlines were allowed to surround the entire painting without any sort of obstructions this time.

The first and thickest outline was a faded grey bar containing soft yellow circles with thin black rims wrapped around them. Four of these circles, every fifth one in the curving line of twenty, contained the image of a small yellow sun. A few of the remaining circles contained orange colored flowers. The rest contained orange tinted shadows belonging to one of two weapons, the first being a curved sword like the one Sora was using earlier and the second being some sort of spear with the arrow head on top replaced by a curved sword blade. The second outline consisted of a series of slightly curved faded orange squares containing what seemed to be faded yellow leaves in a loose V-formation. The outline directly on the edge of the painting consisted of two rows of extremely thin and faded orange bricks divided by black lines.

' _Wonder why this one is so different from the others?'_ Sora thought to himself with a frown, rising to his full height as he looked upon the image below him.

It seemed quite a big change of theme to his blue eyes. In fact, maybe it was the generally faded colors all around it, but this painting almost seemed incomplete somehow when compared to the previous two. Not unfinished, that wasn't quite the sensation he was getting from the painting despite being unable to see the creature in the center of said image in full detail. Rather, it was like most of the life and color the painting was supposed to possess had somehow been sucked out of it instead.

Shoving that observation aside, Sora cautiously looked around the circular mural. He was on guard now that he knew what he was standing on. The teen was expecting to see more of those black creatures suddenly appear and attack him like they did on the last portrait. There was, however, no sign of them on this pillar. Not yet at least.

And even if they did appear here, there was little the blue eyed boy could probably do to defend himself against them now. The sword he was using earlier was gone after all, a small frown appearing on Sora's face when he remembered that particular detail. The brown haired teen supposed he could always try kicking and punching the small monsters with his bare hands and feet, as well as throwing them off the pillar's rim, if push came to shove.

However, Sora could however honestly admit to himself that he was much better at fighting with a toy sword – and a real one, apparently, given what happened earlier - than he was at fighting with his bare hands and feet after all the practice he had against his friends with the wooden object.

Some of his friends, Riku included in this group, would often say when they were younger that he seemed to pick up on what passed for sword fighting on Destiny Islands pretty quickly. Almost as if he had natural talent for it. Sora had always felt it was just beginner's luck though because the others caught up to him quickly. Then again, many of them were a fair bit more serious about getting stronger than the easy going boy was, especially Riku.

Lifting his gaze up towards the lone source of light in this strange place, Sora called out to the silent voice.

"All right. I'm here. What do you want me to do now?" he said, a note of bitterness creeping into his tone. For once, the silent voice was quick to respond to the teen's verbal inquiries.

 _Hold on. No need to rush. The door won't open just yet._

"What door? What's this all about?" Sora demanded, his hands tightly clenching into fists at his sides. This was the second time the voice had mentioned some sort of door without bothering to explain what it meant by that. Was it referring to his escape from this place, the teen wondered? His bare toes were curling slightly beneath him, as if trying to become fists themselves in response to the slightly suppressed irritation he was currently feeling towards the soundless voice.

 _First tell me more about yourself._

The spiky haired teen might as well not have spoken up for just now the voice did not respond to his question at all. The sudden request it asked of him instead did make the teen step back in surprise however.

"Tell you about myself?" Sora slowly repeated the voice's words, unable to believe what he had just heard. The confusion soon faded from his young mind and his eyes narrowed in anger one again. "All right, what gives? What do you really want from me? And where am I?" he demanded to know.

There was no response from the mysterious voice. Not a single word given in response to even one of his questions. Sora almost kicked at an imaginary rock in frustration at the silence but the spiky haired teen liked to believe he had grown past such childish outbursts. His breath still came out of his mouth and nose in irritated bursts though.

"…Figures," the teen told himself once his breathing had evened. He closed his eyes and rubbed against his forehead with his left hand.

Planting his right fist against his hip, the spiky haired teen wondered what he was supposed to be doing here. Was the voice asking him to give a verbal summary of his life or something? Seemed a little simple after everything that had happened so far. And boring.

Either way, Sora's mind was made up about what he was going to do. What he had to do to get out of this place. Even though he found the idea galling he would push through. It's not like anyone else was here to see or hear him right now.

"… I am not playing along with you anymore," Sora decided, lowering his hand from his face after he was finished speaking. He continued talking without opening his eyes. "Just let me out of here. Please."

The teen's pride choked at how he was practically begging the mysterious voice to send him home after everything it had just put him through but he didn't care. He just wanted this whole episode to stop. He wanted to be back on the islands, enjoying the warm air and the sun while getting ready for his big adventure with Riku and Kairi. He didn't want to be stuck here in this strange gloomy place talking to a voice he couldn't even hear while being forced to fight strange monsters. He absolutely didn't.

He waited for several long moments for the voice to do or say something. Nothing but silence was the mysterious speaker's response to his request. Sighing loudly, Sora came to the conclusion that whoever the soundless speaker actually was had no intention of listening to him at all and the spiky haired teen reopened his blue eyes. He nearly jumped in surprise when he saw there was another shadow now resting beside his own on the pillar's painted ceiling.

For a split second, he thought that one of those creatures from before had come to attack him because he was taking too long to speak up. Instead, the teen realized that the shadow slightly to the left of his own was not only larger than one of those monsters, it also looked very human in shape and seemed to be coming from something or someone standing behind him. Spinning in place, Sora was relieved to discover he was not imagining what he had just seen because there was in fact another person standing with him on the painting's surface now.

The newcomer was a woman by the shape of her figure though much of it was obscured by the white coat she wore over her form, the hood pulled up to obscure her face. Sora could see that she was slightly taller than him. The hood left much of her face obscured in shadow but her chin was visible, allowing Sora to see that she had fair skin. A blue rope was tied around her waist as a makeshift belt. Four coat tails fell down from underneath said rope fell short of touching the pillar's painted ceiling, one located in front and one located behind each of the woman's legs. Her feet were encased in what appeared to be steel boots with a sharp hook hanging from their outer sides while long black stockings climbed up her two lower limbs. Underneath her coat, a mixture of white and blue cloth was falling down from her waist, reaching down to the sides and back of her knees.

"Where did you come from?" Sora asked the figure, still reeling at her sudden appearance. She definitely had not been standing there when he first arrived and he hadn't heard her appear at all.

A small part of him wondered if she had seen what he had done just now but the embarrassment that thought conjured up was pushed aside by the relief he felt at no longer being stuck trapped here by himself. Relief that quickly turned to horror at the possibility that another person might have accidentally been dragged here against their will, just like he was.

The woman didn't verbally respond to his question, not even a twitch of the head, and simply stood almost frozen in place. She wasn't even looking at Sora and seemed to be staring off into distance instead, standing with her face and body turned to whatever lay to Sora's right side. A quick glance by the blue eyed teen showed him that there was nothing there, just the edges of the portrait and the dark void beyond.

Shaking his head, Sora quickly closed the distance between himself and the slightly taller woman. Once he was standing close enough to cross the remaining distance between them with a single step, he asked, "Did that strange voice bring you here too?"

His question provoked a response from the woman as she turned to regard Sora. The island raised boy couldn't see her eyes due to them being covered by the shadows of her hood but he could feel them locking onto him, studying Sora and judging his worth with a surprisingly strong gaze. The red and black clothed boy could see strands of blue hair lurking behind her neck, which was mostly covered by the raised black collar of whatever shirt she was wearing underneath her coat. A very odd hair color to the teen, given that there wasn't a single person on Destiny Islands who possessed such a shade of hair.

To his surprise, the woman asked him a question of her own instead of answering the one he asked her first. Just before she spoke though she made a few changes to her posture, cocking her head to the side as she slightly leaned forward while she looked down at his face with her superior height. At the same time her arms, previously hanging limply at her sides, became folded behind her back.

Her voice was completely blank and monotonous as she asked Sora, "What's most important to you?"

"Excuse me?" the island raised teen called out, reeling back in surprise at such a question. He couldn't understand what was going through her mind right now. Why would she ask him such a thing at this time? They needed to find a way out of here.

As if responding to the words he just uttered, the woman asked her question again. Speaking in that same tone of voice, without changing her posture in the slightest this time. "What's most important to you?"

"… Did you not hear a thing I just said?" Sora asked her, speaking very slowly while wondering if this woman was all right in the head. There was something odd about this person, he could feel it now and it was making Sora uncomfortable. He wasn't usually one to judge others for their differences but maybe this place was affecting him more than he had thought.

"What's most important to you?" the woman just repeated her question again, still speaking in that same lifeless tone of voice. Her posture didn't shift at all while during the time that had transpired.

A sudden thought entered the red and black clothed boy's mind when he heard that question for the third time and he reflexively took a step back, his eyes widening inside his head as a sudden possibility came to the forefront of his young mind.

"You're working with the voice," Sora said, blue eyes widening in shock. Less than a second later, his eyes narrowed until they almost became thin slits in his face.

He quickly closed the distance remaining between him and the woman with blue hair. Grabbing her by the collar of her jacket with both hands, Sora barked, "Was that voice you this whole time? Were you the one who brought me here?"

The strange woman didn't react to him physically taking a hold of her coat's collar but her hood did shake slightly when he did so. For an instant, Sora thought he saw bright blue eyes looking down at him without emotion from within the shadows of her hood before the cloth reset itself to its original position on her head.

All he got from her in response to his actions and demands was the same question being verbally repeated again in that same dead tone, causing both his hands to tighten their hold on her coat's collar. Not the slightest twitch movement, no spoken request or plea for him to let go, not even a hard slap in self-defense. As angry as he felt, even with the strange blockade on his emotions keeping most of the rage contained, Sora found that very odd. Odd enough to prompt him to think about what was going on instead of just lashing out at the hooded figure before him like he was inclined to do a few moments earlier.

Why was this woman so obsessed with him answering that question? It's like she existed only for that purpose, to hear that answer from him. After having that observation run through his head, Sora froze where he stood as a sudden thought came to him.

' _This is what the voice meant, isn't it?'_ Sora thought to himself.

A moment later, he slowly let go of the woman with his right hand. She made no move to change her posture and request him to let go of her with his other hand. Sora didn't pay any attention to that as he looked away from her, his gaze falling down to his bare toes and the section of the painting directly beneath them. He kept his left hand on the collar of her coat but his grip was extremely weak now.

"When the voice told me to talk about myself. It actually meant talk to you. You're just going to stand there like a robot, ask me some questions, and I am supposed to answer each and every one of them so the voice will get whatever it is after from me," said the island raised teen, not raising his gaze from his toes as he spoke.

The woman didn't say anything this time, possibly because he wasn't looking at her and possibly because she might be aware that he was talking to himself this time. Perhaps even both.

Slowly turning to regard her, Sora asked, "Are you even a real person? Or just some sort of figment of my imagination?" All she did was repeat her question, causing a small sardonic smile to spread on his face.

"Why am I even bothering asking you anything?" he wondered aloud, turning his head away from her as he spoke. He let go of her coat's collar with his left and crossed his arms over his chest while the woman monotonously repeat her own original question again. He didn't bother listening to her.

' _What's most important to me?'_ Sora silently asked himself, allowing his gaze to trail along the edges of the painting's thickest outline as he pondered the question with crossed arms. The answer came to mind with surprising ease for the spiky haired teen now that he really thought about it.

His friends were, and he didn't mean just Riku and Kairi. All the kids he hanged out with on Destiny Islands were good friends he enjoyed spending time with. And if it wasn't for them, and his adoptive mother, coming into his life like they had Sora knew he would probably be alone right now. If not worse off given how he had arrived on the Destiny Islands.

And that… was something he honestly couldn't bear the thought of. Maybe at one point, when he was younger and had just lost his memories, he could handle or easily adjust to being alone in his life. How could he actually miss or long for something he never recalled having in the first place after all? But after spending so much time interacting with and having fun with the other kids on the islands, Sora realized that he utterly detested the idea of solitude. Maybe he always had, even before he lost his memories of his previous life. An invisible link to the person he used to be before his arrival on the islands.

Without his friends, Sora knew for a fact, life would have been absolutely boring for the spiky haired teen. And maybe, it wouldn't be precious enough to matter to him at all.

Finally turning his head so he could look at the woman, Sora responded honestly to her question. "My friends. That's what's most important to me," he told her.

To his surprise, an immediate change overcame the taller figure as a small smile broke out on what he could see of her face after she heard his reply. Rising to her full height as a soft laugh filled with genuine mirth burst out of her, the woman's shoulders shook slightly as she covered her mouth with one hand, which Sora now saw was covered in a fingerless light grey glove. Her left hand, clad in a matching glove, came to rest on her hip.

With wide blue eyes, the red and black clothed boy uncrossed his arms and took a step away from the strange person in shock at this sudden development. What was going on here?

Regaining control of herself, the sound of her laughter disappearing as quickly as it appeared, the taller person lowered her arm and looked down at the young islander with a kind smile. Distracted as he was by the curl of her lips, Sora almost didn't hear what she said to him next.

"Friends, huh," she said, speaking up with a voice that was now filled with life instead of a dead monotone. She spoke with a playful and teasing tone. "Are they really such a big deal?"

"Wait… were you pretending to be a robot this whole time?" Sora demanded, his young mind having finally rebooted its systems and successfully processed what just happened before his eyes. He practically screamed the last six words as his voice rose in volume with every one he had uttered.

He never got an answer to his question because the smiling woman started rapidly dissolving into many tiny fragments of flickering golden light before his eyes. The fragments spread out a short distance from her body as they appeared and faded away just as quickly as they appeared. The sight of the small lights made the blue eyed boy think of miniaturized fireflies and the few times he had been able to see the insects on Destiny Islands. It wasn't long, barely a few seconds in total, until not a single trace of the hooded woman remained in front him. Her hooded face and kind smile were the last things to fade away, leaving him standing alone on the pillar and looking at nothing but at the small section of the surrounding black void directly behind where she had just been standing.

Staring into what might have been empty space for a few moments, the blue eyed teen shook his head and turned away from where the strange woman had been standing. A part of him wondered if that whole thing had been his imagination and he rubbed the back of his head with his left hand.

"That was weird," Sora commented to himself. Completing his turn, his movements came to a complete stop when he caught sight of two more figures on the platform. Both of them were wearing coats almost identical to the woman's and they had also appeared without him noticing at some point. The blue eyed teen could only suck in a breath at the sight of them and say, "And it's probably going to get even weirder."

Both of the newcomers had their backs to him right now and were facing away from each other. There were some small but noticeable differences in the coats they were wearing, which helped separate them from each other just as much as their differing sizes and body postures did. The taller member of the pair had what appeared to be the image of a large brown monolith stitched on the back of his coat, the rock surrounded by smaller fragments of similar rocks and a dust storm painted a much lighter shade of brown. The shorter figure had a swirling light green tornado on his back instead, the small forms of dark green and brown leaves scattered all around it. The rope wrapped around their waists were also colored differently, a light almost bronze brown one for the standing figure and a soft green one for the shorter one, who was sitting on a small portion of the pillar's round edge.

Sora wondered what had been stitched on to the back of the now missing woman's coat as he started towards the taller of the two figures. The pair were about an equal distance from him and each other. Based on that, Sora guessed that if he had been able to see all three of these hooded people together they would have currently been standing, or sitting in the shorter figure's case, in a triangle formation on the pillar's smooth top.

' _What is it with your fascination with triangles?'_ the spiky haired teen thought to himself, the silent question directed at the voice. He did not speak it because he doubted he would get an actual answer from the soundless voice. The brown haired teen preferred even numbers himself any day. They always seemed balanced and fair to him in comparison to odd numbers.

As he walked, another thought came to Sora's mind. _'That lady only asked me one question and kept asking it over and over until I answered. Is it going to be the same with these guys? One question each? If so, what are they going to ask me?'_

Coming to stand just behind the taller of the two figures, Sora figured it was time to find out. Looking up at the person with the rock themed image on the back of their coat, the spiky haired boy realized it was a young man by how broad his shoulders looked and the fact that he was slightly taller than the woman the islander just spoke to. The teen could see that this person was wearing unusually wide tanned colored pants that reached down to his ankles and that his feet were encased in metal boots possessing a golden paint scheme.

The tall figure was standing with arms crossed a few steps away from the nearest section of the painting's round rim and, from the slight backwards tilt of his head, staring up at the void above as Sora approached him. When the blue eyed teen finally came to a stop a single footstep away from him, the hooded man shifted slightly so that he could look at Sora over his shoulder, silently acknowledging his presence. The shadows of his hood covered his eyes but Sora could see that the figure had slightly tanned skin and that his face was framed by brown bangs of a darker shade than his own hair.

"What are you most afraid of?" the man asked as soon as he was done shifting his head. His arms remained crossed over his chest. His voice was completely monotone as he spoke, just like the woman's had been when she made her own inquiry earlier.

His question brought a strong momentary surge of outrage to Sora's heart. It was only the strange force that kept his emotions from fully affecting his heart and brain that prevented the teen from being consumed by his sudden anger and automatically declaring that he was not afraid of anything as was his natural, borderline instinctive, inclination whenever he was asked such a question. It still took him a few moments to get his breathing under control.

"Can you pick something else please?" Sora spoke through grit teeth once he had done so, glaring at the figure with narrowed eyes. "Anything else?"

The man merely repeated his earlier question in that same dead tone in response, seemingly impervious to Sora's tone. "What are you most afraid of?"

Turning his head to the side so he wouldn't have to look at the taller man, Sora couldn't quite keep the bitterness from his tone as he said, "I guess you are expecting an honest answer from me here?"

The tall figure did not respond to that question from the blue eyed teen, possibly because Sora wasn't looking at his hooded face as he spoke. Neither did the soundless voice, who the question was truly being directed towards.

Whether it was reluctance on his part to contemplate what he was afraid of or not, Sora found it a struggle to answer this question. Especially in comparison to the woman's previous inquiry. Thinking about what she asked him led him to consider how he felt by about being alone. The brown haired teen discarded loneliness as a viable answer to this question soon after.

He knew he wasn't really afraid of being alone so much as it was something he knew for a fact that he would dislike it immensely after seeing how much fun it was to hang out with people his own age. The red and black clothed believed he could probably adapt to being alone if extreme circumstances forced him to do so but it wouldn't be fun or exciting.

Something like old age, which a lot of the kids around his age admitted to being nervous about, didn't scare Sora either. He felt he still had plenty of time before he would get old. The thought of dying did somewhat scare him but his adoptive mother always said that was a natural fear most people felt whenever they talked about it in his younger years. Because of her assurances, Sora wasn't sure if it applied to this question.

Perhaps by coincidence, Sora looked down at his left hand as he thought over the question and found the answer there. He recalled how he used it for nearly everything when he first came to the Destiny Islands while other kids used their right hand instead. No one had ever said anything, especially the adults since they didn't look bothered by it at all, but he could still remember the way a few of the other kids had scrunched their faces at the sight of him writing with his left hand and how self-conscious it made him feel at the time. He could also recall how hard he worked to make sure he could use his right hand as well as his left despite his mother stating it wasn't necessary whenever she caught him practicing.

Looking up at the hooded man, Sora spoke up with a slightly hollow voice and said, "Being different."

It was short, simple, and to the point yet Sora couldn't help but feel disappointed with himself. He felt like he was handing over a trusted secret to a complete stranger, which wasn't totally wrong given his present circumstances.

Regardless, the answer seemed to be enough for the hooded man, who nodded slightly when he heard what the young islander said. Like the woman before him, he suddenly became more alive after Sora answered his question. A small comforting smile broke out on his mostly shadowed face as he uncrossed his arms, placing his left hand on his hip. Raising his right hand into the air with the palm facing upwards, it came to rest almost level with his head.

"Being different. Just what's so bad about that?" the tall figure asked him, his tone kind as he waved his right hand slightly in its new place. He almost sounded like a caring older brother when he spoke then, not that Sora ever had one since he came to Destiny Islands.

Like the first hooded person, once he was done speaking again, the man quickly dissolved into a mass flickering golden lights that faded away as soon as they appeared. He left Sora to contemplate any response he could have to that last question by himself.

"…It's bad when it causes you difficulties in making friends," Sora answered after a long moment, speaking to the empty air before him. Those words sounded hollow to his own ears, lacking any sort of weight or sincerity. Maybe the blue eyed boy hadn't thought about his answer to the man's first question as much as he should have?

Shaking his head in order to dispel his suddenly depressed mood, the red and black clothed teen turned to where the third question was sitting and started towards the hooded person. He officially wanted to get this over with right now.

The last of the three hooded figures was still casually sitting on the edge of the painting as Sora walked towards him. A boy, possible around Sora's age by his body's shape, he sat with his feet and lower legs openly dangling over the rim of the pillar's ceiling. He kept his upper body propped up with his hands, the fingers of which were also curling over the edge as he gripped the pillar. Like the tallest of the three hooded figures, this one seemed to find the dark void strangely fascinating and was staring down at the darkness way below his feet while he waited for the spiky haired boy to come to him. Perhaps he was contemplating taking the plunge Sora himself would not?

As he came over to answer what he hoped was his third and final question, Sora guessed that he and the hooded figure stood at roughly the same height now that he got a better look at the person. He stopped a single step to the left of the hooded figure when said person started leaning back where they sat. The figure's torso soon coming to a halt, the hooded person craned and twisted his neck slightly to look up at Sora. The spiky haired teen wondered why the white hood didn't fall off the person's head in that position but it didn't matter to him. Especially since the mysterious person was currently asking him a question.

"What do you want out of life?" the sitting person asked Sora in a monotone voice, seemingly unbothered by their body's current posture. The sound of his voice confirmed for Sora that the speaker was ab boy around the same age as him.

"What do I want out of life? You mean what do I want to do from here?" Sora asked him, slightly confused by the question and automatically seeking further clarification. All he got was a monotonous repeat of the question in response, bringing a small scowl to his lips.

"Right, how could I forget about that," the red and black clothed boy commented to himself, a slightly sharp tone to his question as he lowered his gaze to look once more at his mostly exposed feet and the section of the painting he was standing on.

Contemplating the question in silence, Sora was tempted to say that he wanted to get out of this strange place but he had a feeling that wasn't what this guy was asking about. Out of life… that sounded like what he wanted to do while he was still alive and had time to live however he wanted.

It made him think of his closest friends, about how close they were to completing their shared project, and starting their adventures together. The mere thought of travelling over the ocean to see what lurked beyond it caused a burst of excitement to build up within his chest, regardless of whether his friends were there with him or not in his mind's eye. He ignored how the sudden rise in exhilaration was beaten down by whatever force still had a restraining hold over his emotions and turned back to the hooded figure.

"I want to travel, to see what's out there beyond the scope of my islands," Sora told the other boy. He spoke honestly and earnestly, unable to keep his voice from carrying a faint tinge of excitement as he held up both hands before his chest. His fingers curled into tight fists as he spoke.

Like the other two before him, the hooded boy smiled at his answer. Sitting up straight again, the other teen turned his head away from Sora and went back to looking at the darkness below his now airily swinging feet. A short time later, he crossed his arms behind his hooded head. The latter action reminded Sora of how he would cross his own arms behind his head in a slightly similar manner whenever he was feeling bored, regardless of whether he was just standing still or walking.

"Travelling to see what's out there," the figure said. His back was still to Sora so he couldn't see if he was smiling or not but the figure sounded amused for sure. And friendly too. "You sure that's what you want, buddy?"

"Of course," Sora responded, his voice and face filled with resolve as he answered, not even reacting to what the figure had just called him.

He managed to respond to that last question just before the other boy dissolved into small golden lights like Sora's previous two questioners. As the hooded boy faded away, the blue eyed islander swore he saw the other teen raise his left hand in farewell while he broke apart.

The small golden colored lights dissolved just as quickly as the ones before them and Sora was once again left alone on the pillar's ceiling. A quick glance around the painting showed him that there were no more hooded figures suddenly appearing out of thin air, wanting to ask him a question of their own.

Well, he wasn't completely alone as the silent voice chose to remind him of its existence right then. He tried to ignore the voice in what some might call a childish and immature gesture of dismissal as it silently announced what it took from his three answers. Despite his reluctance to listen, the words the voice was saying pierced his mind with perfect clarity.

 _You value friendship._

 _You want to travel and see what's out there._

 _You're afraid of being different._

Sora frowned slightly at the last one, still uncomfortable at the thought of being afraid of anything and wondering if he gave the right answer to that question. Try as he might, the young islander couldn't think up another answer right now. Not that the silent voice gave him much time to think.

 _Very well._

 _Keep a steady pace and you'll come through fine._

"What-" Sora began to verbally responded to that last statement. He was cut off before he could finished voicing his latest question by a bright white flash that seemed to come from all around him all at once.

The sudden glare consumed his surroundings in an instant and forced him to cover his eyes with both eyelids and arms out of an instinctive fear that they would go blind if he didn't. A brief wave of heat washed over his form and when it faded away, Sora felt the flash disappear to.

Lowering his arms away from his face and opening his eyes, the blue eyed boy took a look at his surroundings. He realized two different things very quickly. First, the white star above had grown in size again. It wasn't as big an expansion as the previous one but it was still noticeable to him. The second thing the red and black clothed boy discovered was that he had somehow been instantly transported to another pillar. The image below his feet was different from the one he had been standing on before the white flash and he had been moved from the edge of the previous pillar to this one's direct center.

Once again sharing the same idea as the first two paintings, the picture below Sora was of a beautiful woman in a state of sleep. This woman had long wavy blonde hair and wore a violet dress with a small black choker wrapped around her neck. Her lips were covered by lipstick of the same bright red shade as the small rose she was clutching in her hands and holding close to her torso. By her body's posture, this woman seemed to have fallen asleep while standing for some reason and was painted frozen in the act of falling off her feet and unto her back.

Of the two circles lurking behind her, the one dominating the center of the image was consumed by the grey surface of a dense fog or large stone while long pitch black thorn covered vines were running wildly across it, some overlapping with the skirts of the woman's dress. Thorn covered vines with bright green paint were poking out from the behind the edges of the first circular outline around the image and they stretched across sections of it and the second outline in a wild and disorganized manner.

The circle behind the woman's head, hair, and torso seemed to be made of yellow glass fragments hastily put back together after being broken apart based on the disorganized web of black lines between them. A brownish red rim surrounded the whole circle. Seven smaller reddish brown circles decorated with black lines that caused them to resemble flattened rose heads resided in this circle, each carrying a pink tinted shadow. Sora couldn't make out the center shadow or those on the three circles closest to the woman as they were largely obscured by her arms, torso, head, and hair. However, the remaining three seemed to possess a wand waving figure in a wide dress with a small cone shaped hat on their heads and even smaller wings on their backs positioned in a rough upside down U-shaped formation.

Magic using fairies, perhaps? The mere thought that they actually existed almost caused Sora to snort. He had learned years ago that magic wasn't real. Then again, considering everything the spiky haired teen had seen in this place, if he continued to consider the chance that it wasn't some sort of strange dream, was magic really as fictional as he had been led to believe?

The first and thickest of the three outlines surrounding this painting seemed to be painted to resemble broken reddish brown glass shards hastily put back together, as evidenced by the black lines running freely along it. Orange circles were planted overtop of them, each of them containing the flattened face of a bright red rose on their otherwise clear surfaces. The second outline resembled curving reddish brown rectangles, each possessing two faint orange leaves in a flattened V-shaped formation. The final outline was composed of two extremely thin reddish brown bricks circling the image.

' _What is the point of all the princess themes here,'_ Sora wondered to himself, having a feeling the voice would ignore him if he were to verbally ask the question to whoever it actually was.

After seeing several different women in finely made dresses, the word princess just popped into his head when thinking about them. Perhaps it was dropped there by the voice somehow, assuming it was not inspired by how pretty they looked and their expensive looking dresses. It was a scary thought with wide implications of what the owner of the soundless voice could actually do. At this point, Sora was almost ready to believe anything could happen in this strange place.

' _And why was the last one so different from the others?'_ he asked himself again, rubbing his chin slightly with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. _'And why did it feel… unfinished?'_

Before he had a chance to really ponder those questions, there was a sudden flash of light coming from his left hand just before the curved sword he was using earlier reappeared there. Grasping the thing by the hilt on instinct, its sudden and unexpected weight almost caused Sora to drop the sword or fall to a knee, if not both at the same time.

' _Back again, huh,'_ Sora thought, after he had regained his bearings. Running his blue eyes down the length of the weapon, he confirmed that it was indeed the exact same one as before after a quick examination. A small frown appeared on his face as he asked himself, _'Why?'_

 _Behind you._

Looking back at this moment, Sora would not be able to tell himself if it was instinct or something else that compelled him to listen to the silent voice's sudden warning. Regardless, he took the words seriously and threw himself flat on his belly the instant he had heard that phrase resound in his head. The red and black clothed teen just barely managed to avoid striking the pillar's hard ceiling with his smaller and more fragile nose as he did so. His cheek was forced to suffer a pretty heavy blow in its place as a recompense.

Feeling and hearing something of fly over and past him, the spiky haired teen lifted his head slightly to take a look at the mysterious object. Sora's eyes and mouth widened in silent surprise when he saw that it was one of those strange creatures from before.

This one was currently coming down towards the painting now that it had finished leaping over the island boy's mostly prone body. It had likely been attempting to get the jump on him from behind in order to stab him in the head or shoulder with one of its claws. Were it not for the voice's sudden warning, it likely would have succeeded with how distracted the red and black clothed boy had been by the reappearance of his sword.

' _When did this thing even get here?'_ Sora asked himself, leaping to his feet. There was no doubt in his mind that he needed to get rid of it as quickly as possible after what happened the last time he had met such monsters.

Memories of that incident still fresh in his mind, Sora chased after the creature while holding his sword with both hands. It landed a short distance away from where the spiky haired teen had been lying on his belly and said teen easily reached the thing just after its flat feet made contact with the painting. He didn't hesitate in unleashing a fast three hit combo consisting upon the small monster's back while it was turned away from it. Like the others before it, the creature burst into rapidly fading black smoke once the third blow had landed upon it.

' _All right, now where are its friends?'_ Sora, thought to himself while letting go of the sword with his left hand. He highly doubted the small critter had come after him alone.

He turned around in order to look for the monsters, holding his recently returned sword tightly in his right hand as he did so. As he expected, more of them were fading into existence atop the painting. The creatures seemed to form a curving single file line before Sora, one that continued to expand around him. Every time one of the monsters started the process of peeling itself off the painting another was already fading into existence in that odd shadow-like state of theirs beside it.

Trying to follow both ends of the growing line with his eyes in order to keep track of their numbers, Sora was forced to twist in place as the streak of monsters curled around his location. As the last one faded into existence, the ends of the line became joined together and it turned into a loose circle formation of yellow eyed monsters surrounding the island raised teen.

There were twenty of the small creatures in total. Most of them were twitching slightly in almost erratic fashion where they stood on their flat feet, almost like they were impatiently waiting for the rest of their brothers to arrive before attacking him.

' _I need to move,'_ Sora thought, quickly realizing that he was in a bad position right now. All these things needed to do was close in on him from all sides at the same time and they would tear him apart with their small claws in instant. There were too many of them for him to fight them all off at once, especially while they came at him from all sides.

He started running forward and heard several of the creatures behind him trying to jump on his back as he did so. Reacting quickly, the spiky haired teen threw himself into a roll, pushing himself along with his left arm to gain further speed. He hissed as one of the monsters nicked the sole of his foot with its claw as he passed the creature but the pain was minimal, allowing the blue eyed teen to ignore it and power on through the rest of the roll.

Coming to the edge of the encirclement, Sora quickly swung his sword towards the small monster he saw standing directly in front of his crouched form. It had been in the process of stabbing forward with a small claw at that time, most likely aiming for his waist or raised knee, and the curved blade of Sora's weapon was intercepted before it could reach the creature's head.

Monster and teen both reeled back slightly from the impact and one of the monster's friends leaped past Sora's, slashing him in the left shoulder with a small claw as it did so. This time Sora did cry out in pain.

Bunching down further as soon as the cry had left his lips, the boy proceeded to leap over the creature directly in front of him in order to increase the distance between him and those behind him. Since he was crouching down on one knee before he leaped, it wasn't a particularly high or strong jump he was able to perform just then. But it was enough for Sora to sail somewhat ungracefully over the small monster standing in front of him.

Landing a little awkwardly his feet behind the creature, the teen quickly got his balance back and ran forward a small distance in order to get further away from the group of yellow eyed monsters. He stopped and turned around only after he was just two steps away from the nearest portion of rounded edge of the pillar.

He was not surprised to see that some of the monsters were chasing after him and he quickly lashed out at the nearest one, striking it three times in the head with his sword. The creature burst into smoke before him, the small haze obscuring Sora's vision just enough to stop him from seeing another one of the creatures leaping toward his head until it was too late. The obsidian monster slammed into his face with a flying head butt, stunning the spiky haired teen and nearly knocking him off his feet, something that could have sent him falling off the edge of the pillar given his current position.

Fortunately, that didn't happen. However, the red and black clothed boy did wobble in place, just barely standing and equally aware of his surroundings at the moment. One of the leaping monster's brothers took advantage of Sora's stunned state to stab him in the stomach with one of its small claws. The pain from the attack helped dispersed the fog around his brain even as it brought a short scream from Sora's throat.

Retaliating with a vengeance the second after the pain dispersed, Sora struck the two creatures closest to him in a frenzy, swinging his sword like a madman. One of them burst into black smoke under the fury of his onslaught while the other one reeled back after only two strikes, moving slight out of Sora's reach and causing his third strike upon the monster to fall short.

Before Sora could advance upon the thing and finish it off, he caught another one flying at him out of the corner of his blue eyes. Moving to left, Sora swung his weapon in a manner similar to a baseball bat as the creature flew past him and struck it in the lower back. The creature's momentum accelerated as a result of the impact and it flew over the edge of the pillar. Soon after, it proceeded to fall into the dark abyss below Sora's current location.

' _Three down,'_ the brown haired teen thought to himself, hoping that the last one would not have some way to come back and attack him again since he didn't see it burst into smoke. He had enough on his plate to deal with as it was. _'More than ten of them to go.'_

The remaining creatures were swarming his position on the painting now, the stragglers having finally caught up to the initial wave of small monsters. The closest creatures relentless slashed at him with their small claws, forcing Sora to leap away from where he was standing or be overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. Two of the creatures managed to get lucky or well-timed hits on his legs as he took off, one of his left calf and the other on his right foot, just past his bare toes. Crying out in pain, Sora landed awkwardly on a new section of the pillar behind the mob and fell down to one hand and knee.

One of the creatures proceeded to leap on his back while he was down and kicked off the teen after slashing him in the back of the neck, its sudden weight boring him down onto the flat of his stomach. Sora's forehead had a painful encounter with the pillar's mural covered surface during this moment but it didn't hurt as much as when Riku or one of the other boys managed to hit Sora in said spot during their practice matches and actual fights.

Gritting his teeth through the pain, Sora quickly rolled on to his back and lifted up his legs in preparation to perform the Counter Roll again. Two of the monsters slashed at his upper legs while he was blinded by his feet and the pain nearly disrupted Sora's efforts at getting back up.

After crying out in pain, the teen managed to launch himself off the painting and throw himself onto his feet. He had a bad situation waiting for him once he completed the maneuver.

What happened was that he had landed in between five of the yellow eyed creatures and all but one of them was currently turned in his direction. The four of them slashed at him near instantly, with two going for his legs, one for the side of his stomach, and the other his left foot. The pain from being struck four times by sharp claws in almost perfect sync caused Sora to bend down and nearly fall to his knees, a scream of pain erupting from his throat.

' _Get away from me,'_ the teen mentally roared pulling himself up and spinning in place, holding his sword out with his right hand. He struck four of the creatures surrounding him, one of them not being a member of his latest assailants, and they all reeled back from him slightly due to the force behind his blow.

Taking the opportunity he had just given himself, Sora focused on the one he had missed. He went after it before the thing could launched another attack upon him by itself, the teen's sword now clutched tightly with both hands. The creature burst into rapidly fading smoke at the end of Sora's ensuing three hit combo, just like all the others before it.

Another obsidian monster leaped at Sora's head from slightly to his left, slashing at his face in order to avenge its comrade. The spiky haired teen just barely managed to lean back in time to avoid the attack and the critter sailed harmlessly past him. Seeing one of the monster's he had knocked back with his recent spinning attack about to come at him again from the corner of his eyes, Sora backhanded it in the face with his sword before leaping out of the small circle.

He landed a short distance away from his previous location and found another one of the monsters twitching in front of him, perhaps waiting for him to arrive there. Not giving the thing a chance to attack him, Sora quickly destroyed it with hurried right handed swings of his sword.

Turning his head, the blue eyed teen saw more of the monsters were coming his way, the majority of them running at him while the rest had flattened themselves against the painting's colorful surface. The latter group seemed to be trying to circle around the spiky haired boy and get behind him. They moved independently of each other and took different routes towards Sora while the runners were all coming towards him as a swarm and charging from the front.

While trying to keep his eyes on the ones stuck to the pillar's surface, Sora stepped forward to engage the closest running monster. Swinging his sword downwards with two hands, Sora slammed the beast into the painting just before it could stab him in the leg with a small claw. After quickly twisting the sword around in his hands, he stabbed downwards twice and struck the creature both times with the tip of his blade. The second stab ended the beast, the tip of his sword diving through the dissolving smoke to tap against the unyielding surface of the pillar below.

Seeing the next one in line leaping at him, Sora let go of his sword with his left hand and slashed upward with his right after ducking down to try and avoid a flying tackle to his face. The sword struck the creature's body and then proceeded to slice clean through it rather than knock the monster away. With the momentum of his swing pulling his torso upwards slightly, Sora accidentally widened his eyes in surprise at the creature's sudden demise just before his face connected with some of said creature's fading remains.

A cry of pain burst from the teen's lips as he reeled back, clutching at his face with his left hand as tears threatened to spill from his eyes due to the sudden burning sensation consuming them. It wasn't as bad as the first time it happened since Sora's eyeballs didn't make contact with quite as much smoke this time but it still hurt.

And it left him open long enough for one of the small monster's, probably one of the ones that had flattened itself against the pillar's ceiling earlier, to stab him in his lower back with one of its small claws. Another creature proceeded to hit him in the stomach with its own claw soon after, after he had unconsciously staggered forward from the first blow.

He bent forward slightly as he cried out from the pain. Said pain soon gave way to anger, which the even further weakened barrier blocking his emotions wasn't able to properly suppress.

Growling like an angry animal as he looked at the beast before him with his vision a little blurry still, Sora slashed at it with his sword. That was a mistake because the creature had been flattening itself on the pillar's surface and it had completed the transformation right before the descending blade could reach its head. The weapon bounced of the flattened black form and the painting beneath it, nearly flying out of Sora's now vibrating hand again as it flew up and past his head.

Managing just barely to hold onto his sword, Sora used the momentum from its rebound to help him spin around in place and slash at the creature directly behind him. His attack missed his intended target, going slightly too high due to how numb his arm felt, but he managed to strike a lucky blow on another one of the monsters standing to the side of his target. It had been coming at him from what was now his right side, and the tip of his sword slammed into its round face at the end of his swing. The blow seemed to stun the monster as it reeled back slightly at the impact.

Even as he felt his right arm return to normal, Sora still wasn't able to move fast enough to react in time and avoid getting stabbed in the stomach by the monster he had just missed. Stepping back on reflex as he barely held in the urge to cry out, Sora quickly switched sword hands and lashed out at the monster with his left hand now holding his weapon. He scored a three hit combo on the creature, each blow landing on its round head and forcing it back slightly before it finally burst into black smoke.

Believing there were more of the monsters behind him, Sora took the opportunity to leap forward in hopes of getting some distance from them. He did a quick mental head count of how many he had taken down and how many he believed still remained as he did so.

' _Eight gone. Twelve to go,'_ the spiky haired brunette thought, landing on his feet and spinning around to face the monsters that still remained on the pillar with him. Keeping track of their numbers seemed to help him relax in the middle of this fight, toning down the anger he felt.

He barely caught sight of one of the monsters peeling itself off the pillar's painted ceiling directly in front of his bare feet as he turned. Surprised, he quickly struck at the beast with downward chopping swings of his sword. The beast burst into black smoke after only two strikes.

Unable to stop his third strike from slicing through the smoke and impacting against the mural below his feet, a numbing sensation once again crawled up Sora's arm as his blade rebounded off the pillar. It wasn't as bad as the previous one since he wasn't swinging as hard so he was able to keep an easy grip on his sword. Just in case, he took hold of the weapon with his no longer numb right hand.

' _This is getting annoying,'_ the red and block clothed boy thought, deciding to try and stop using those kinds of swings here. They ran too much of a risk of doing more harm than good for the teen.

One of the monsters was leaping at him while he was changing sword hands and thinking to himself, aiming for either his head or shoulders. Sora evaded the attack by bending forward slightly as he stepped to the side. Before he could turn around and deal with the yellow eyed creature, another one of its kind came at him from his left side in the same manner and slammed into his right shoulder, nearly knocking the teen off his feet. It landed on its flat feet directly beside the spiky haired boy.

Seeing yet another creature running up to him from his other side, Sora rapidly spun in place with his sword arm outstretched again in order to hit both monsters. The small creature that had just tackled him in the shoulder burst into smoke when it was hit. Its counterpart unfortunately leaped over the blow and slashed Sora in the forehead with one claw as it flew past his head. Crying out in pain as his spinning came to a stop, Sora clutched at his head on instinct with his left hand.

With his palm directly in front of his eyes, he didn't see another one of the monsters running up to stab him in the left side of his stomach. But he certainly did feel the painful burning sensation that came from the blow, another cry bursting from his lips proof enough of that to anyone watching and listening.

' _Is it just me or are these guys slightly faster than before,'_ Sora thought to himself. As he pulled his hand away from his face, he noticed a faint trace of sweat moistening the portion of the glove that covered his palm and the bare skin of his fingers. The sight of it made him suddenly aware that he was breathing harder than when the fight had started. _'Yeah, it's me. I'm getting tired. Not good.'_

He must have exhausted himself more than he had thought in his earlier fight. If not while struggling in the darkness after being submerged in the odd liquid that had appeared on the second pillar.

Raising his head, he saw another one of these strange creatures coming at him in hopes of stabbing him in the stomach with one of its claws. It might even be the same one that had last struck him there. Sora clumsily blocked the attack by holding his sword vertically in front of his torso, the tip of the blade pointed downwards with the palm of his left hand placed against the dull edge to steady it. The sword shifted slightly in place from the impact of the small monster's attack but did its job and successfully block the stab. Quickly retaliating, Sora unleashed a one-handed three hit combo upon the beast as it pulled back from its failed attempt and the yellow eyed monster burst into smoke before his blue eyes once the third hit had landed on its antennae bearing head.

Seeing three more of the creatures running up to him while a fourth was moving alongside them with that strange shadow transformation trick, Sora had the sudden urge to go on the offensive instead of waiting around for them to keep attacking him. He started running towards the oncoming group.

Throwing himself into a roll after only a few steps and pushing himself forward with his left hand as he did so, Sora sped past the first two running monsters and stopped before the last member of their glowing eyed trio. He seemed to have caught the beast by surprise for it did not attack right away and instead seemed to freeze up slightly, allowing Sora to pull himself to his feet and launch an attack himself. It only took two hits to make this creature disperse into rapidly fading smoke.

Quickly spinning in place, Sora struck at the nearest monster and landed a solid three hit combo on its back and head. The creature burst into smoke as the last surviving member of the previously charging trio tried to leap at Sora's head. The spiky haired teen ducked under the attack, allowing the monster to sail harmlessly over him. Before he could chase after it however, he saw another monster charging from his left side and swung his sword with his right arm alone at the beast.

Claw and blade slammed into each other, monster and teenager both recoiling from the impact slightly. Changing sword hands as he lifted the blade overhead with his right arm, Sora performed a wide slash while holding the weapon with his left hand and struck the creature hard in the face. As it recoiled from the blow, Sora stepped towards the creature and hit it on the head with a two handed downward slash. He finished his assault by stabbing his sword forward with both hands, the blade of his sword nearly consumed by the black smoke as it continued forward a short distance after the creature popped like a balloon after the strike landed.

"Next," Sora called out, panting slightly where he stood. He soon pushed himself to his full height, letting go of his weapon with his right hand as he did so.

Seemingly in answer to his call, he saw two of the monsters peeling themselves off the painting directly in front of him. Before he could even consider which of the pair he should go after first, a third monster slammed into his back with a leaping tackle. Staggering forward two steps in surprise, Sora let out a cry as one of the monsters in front of him slashed him in the leg with its right claw.

Looking down at where the painful burning sensation was coming from, the blue eyed teen was again amazed to see not even a gash in his pants' leg to indicate he had been hit by a sharp object there. If it weren't for the pain he was feeling that alone would convince him this was still some sort of weird dream.

His distraction cost him again as another creature performed a flying tackle from the side, this one succeeding where other attempts had failed in knocking the teen off his feet. Barely managing to hold onto his sword as he landed on his side, Sora hissed in slight pain from the impact and instinctively rolled on to his back. His eyes widened when he saw one of the monsters leap directly on to his stomach, its surprisingly heavy weight pinning him down and preventing him from using the Counter Roll to get up this time.

He cried out in pain as it stabbed him in the chest, nearly hitting his crown pendant with its claws as it did so. That near miss caused a sudden burst of rage to fill Sora's heart and he grabbed the creature by the sides of its small torso with both hands, still clutching his sword with his left hand as he did so. After barely managing to toss the creature to the side, Sora quickly threw himself to his feet with Riku's Counter Roll as soon as he was free of the thing.

By a stroke of good luck, he managed to slam his feet into another one of the monsters as he flew off the painting and the creature seemed to sway in a stunned manner before him once he was on his feet. All that was missing to confirm that it was in a dazed state was a small group of small golden stars swirling and popping around its head.

Sora took advantage of its current condition and unleashed a three-hit combo upon the creature. The third swing did nothing but send the blade slicing through empty air and black smoke because the creature popped after the second attack.

"How many does that make?" Sora wondered out loud, having lost count with all the fighting. He quickly turned around where he stood roughly in the center of the painting in order to see how many of the strange monsters remained for him to fight.

He saw three of them moving about on their flat feet while two more had flattened themselves against image decorating the top of the pillar. He couldn't tell which one was the monster that had just sat on his belly. In spite of that, the teen was honestly feeling a little relieved that there were now so few of the monsters left given how tired he currently felt. He could feel small beads of sweat running down the back of his neck and the sides of his face.

Yet despite his growing exhaustion, there was also a small sense of prideful accomplishment burning in Sora's chest at how he was fairing in what might actually be his second real fight so far. Assuming of course, this wasn't all still some sort of weird dream that had sprung up from within the depths of his imagination. Depths he hadn't even known he possessed.

' _Guess all that time fighting with the other kids on the islands is starting to pay off,'_ Sora thought, a small smile growing on his face in spite of the situation. Sure, he took a few bad hits but he was destroying the monsters one by one all the same. _'If the monsters out there in the real world are as tough as these guys, they'll be no match for me and Riku together.'_

The other boy was, to Sora's slight consternation, still a slightly better fighter than the spiky haired teen. Their current scoreboard was 78 – 53 by his last check, with Riku holding the larger number of victories in their fights. Sora tried to write it off as Riku simply being a year older and slightly taller than the spiky haired teen being the reason for his greater number of wins more than anything else. Even if the other boy was more serious about getting as strong as possible, especially in comparison to Sora's more relaxed approach to practice.

He wasn't jealous of Riku's greater number of wins though. Sora always tried his best and still lost so the other teen earned those victories fair and square in the brown haired boy's mind. He'll simply have to make up the difference later.

Musing in the middle of a fight once again proved to be a costly distraction for Sora as he just barely noticed one of the remaining monsters in the middle of peeling itself off the painting directly beside him. He was too slow to react to its proximity and received a painful slash to the right side of his torso as a result. Crying out, the teen staggered slightly away from his latest assailant.

"That's really getting old," Sora angrily snapped after he recovered from the sudden attack.

Taking a hold of his sword with his right hand, he lashed out with a wide horizontal slash. Too little too late because the small creature had already been in flattening itself against the painting again, causing the sword blade to fly harmlessly over its head. Noticing another one of the monsters leaping at him from the left, Sora hastily ducked down so that the creature would sail harmlessly over him.

Rising to his full height, he saw a third monster running at him from the left and swung down at it just before the creature reached him, stunning the thing with a solid blow to the head. Taking advantage of its confused state, Sora pulled his sword back and stabbed forward with it. He all but skewered the creature upon his weapon for it dissolved into black smoke the moment the tip made hard contact with the center of its antennae bearing head.

Taking a hold of his sword with both hands, Sora spun around in preparation for further combat. Seeing one of the creatures pulling itself out of its weird shadow-like flattened state a short distance away, the spiky haired teen started towards it. Another one of the monsters leapt at him from the side, forcing him to halt his advance in order to lean back and avoid getting slashed in the face as it sailed past. Letting go of his blade with his left hand, he struck the creature from behind with his sword after it had passed, causing it to sail further away from him.

The one Sora had originally been targeting advanced upon the spiky haired teen while he was busy dealing with the interloper and the blue eyed boy took advantage of its proximity to kick it in the head. The creature continued to advance upon him as the blow landed on its round chin, the beast seemingly not even noticing let alone feeling the attack, and it tried to stab Sora in his now outstretched left leg. The red and black clothed boy just barely managed to pull his limb back in time and avoid contact with the sharp claw, spinning in place on his right foot to do so.

Raising his sword overhead once he was standing on both feet again, Sora brought it down with a hard chopping motion upon the creature, flattening it against the mural covered surface of the pillar's ceiling. Two swings from side to side while holding his sword with his right hand alone caused the beast to disperse into black smoke.

Sora could feel his chest starting to ache because of his exertions, his ribs seemingly shrinking inside his body and starting to try and crush his lungs as a result. Holding his sword loosely by his side with his right hand, Sora placed his left hand over his chest to try and ease the sensation. A pointless, ineffective, and distracting gesture given his current situation.

And one he almost paid a heavy price for after one of the remaining monsters had unleashed a flying tackle upon his back, the impact causing him to stagger forward and come dangerously close to falling off the edge of the painting.

Collapsing to one knee before the rim of the pillar's flat top, Sora exhaled heavily and turned his head to the side. Seeing one of the creatures charging and then leaping towards his crouching form, Sora purposefully fell onto his back and raised his hands in an attempt to catch it. He did manage to grab hold of the creature but its weight was too much for him to hold it up at the moment. It landed hard on his stomach, still clutched in his hands, and stabbed the brown haired teen in the upper section of his left arm with its small claw.

Even as he cried out from the sudden pain that attack invoked, Sora pushed up with his arms and forced the creature off him, pushing it towards the edge of the painting as he did so. With half-lidded blue eyes, he watched as the small monster just barely slid over said edge. The strange critter's long antennae were the last things to be obscured by the pillar's rim as it began its long fall towards whatever lurked in the darkness below.

' _That should be two more to go now,'_ Sora thought, panting heavily and slightly out of breath after feeling the creature's weight on his stomach. Forcing himself into a sitting position with his right forearm, Sora looked up in order to locate the remaining monsters.

His calculations were correct as he saw there was just two more of the strange creatures keeping him company on the pillar's ceiling. Both monsters were currently heading his way, running over the painting with their flat feet.

Thankfully, more of them did not seem to be fading into existence before Sora's eyes. Grimacing, the spiky haired teen forced himself onto his feet and took a somewhat forced ready stance with his sword, holding the thing before him with both hands.

He swung at the first of the approaching pair of monsters as it leaped at him, striking it on the head in mid-air. To his surprise, the creature burst into rapidly fading smoke upon the first hit. He didn't have time to think about it as the other one proceeded to leap at him as well, the black smoke slightly obscuring said monster's movements.

Attempting to duck beneath the creature, Sora's sudden momentum caused him to fall to one knee instead due to his exhaustion and deteriorating balance. The creature still sailed harmlessly over his spiky brown locks and Sora turned his head to watch over his shoulder as the creature landed just before the edge of the painting.

Grimacing, Sora last out at the beast and struck it once in the back with the tip of his sword as hard as he could. That was enough to finish the fight as the creature staggered forward from the blow, one of tis flat feet going over the edge of the painting and dragging the rest of its body after it when it started to fall down towards the darkness below. Unable to steady itself in time, the monster began its descent towards the base of the ridiculously tall pillar and vanished from Sora's sight.

The spiky haired teen blinked slightly after that happened before he looked around the painting to see if any more of those monsters were going to show up again now that the initial batch was defeated. He was in a pretty exhausted state right now and likely wouldn't make it past another round with a few of those things. Fortunately for the young islander, after several moments of nothing but silence, it became clear to him that no more of those creatures were coming to attack him on this pillar any time soon.

Sighing heavily in relief, the island boy allowed himself to fall onto his back. He was too exhausted to stay in his kneeling position and unable to even think of standing up right now. His sword fell from weak fingers to clatter gently against the painting. It soon came to rest uselessly beside Sora's body as he lay with his arms stretched out to his sides. The spiky haired teen's blue eyes closed tight, preventing him from seeing anything around him as his lungs struggled to absorb new oxygen for his body.

' _I am glad that's over with,'_ the teen thought to himself while he tried to recover from his latest ordeal. His breathing soon evened out while his whole body kept on aching in a silent protest against all the physical activity he had been forced to do since coming here. _'I honestly don't know how much more of this I can take.'_

Sadly, the choice was not up to him and the island raised youth knew it. The choice hadn't been up to him from the very first moment he arrived in this strange place. After slowly opening his right eye, Sora glared up at the lone star-like white light looming far above him. Unwilling to feel the smallest amount of gratitude for not sending more monsters to attack him while he was down, the spiky haired teen posed a question to the soundless voice that had been harrying him along ever since he somehow came here. Where here actually was.

"Well, what do you want me to do for you now?" the teen called out, unable to keep some of the bitter resentment he was feeling from reaching his voice.

The soundless voice did not reply with words this time but Sora got an answer none the less. The glow of the star-like light suddenly grew intensified without warning, forcing Sora to turn his head to the side and look at the painting beneath him in order to protect his eyesight. His head's new positioning allowed him to watch as a faint white circle surrounded his position on the pillar's ceiling, its appearance making him feel like an ant with a flashlight shining down on his form. The circle expanded around his prone form until it reached a diameter that was far too wide for Sora's hands to reach the perimeter without him being forced to move in whatever way he chose from his current position.

Raising an eyebrow at the sight, Sora watched in silence as the light soon started to move away from him a few seconds later. It slid across the painting in a smooth line, pulling away from Sora at a decent pace while heading straight for what currently the farthest section of the painting's edge. Flying over said portion of the painting's edge a short time later, the halo proceeded to disappear without any fanfare as it did so. The moment it had fully vanished from Sora's sight, a flash of light in the empty air a footstep away from the pillar's edge announced the arrival of a flat rectangular platform.

A second flash of light signaled the appearance of another such platform, somehow hovering directly behind and slightly higher than the first one. A third platform appeared after that one in the same manner and with the same positioning, with another such dais of the same shape and make appearing behind and slightly above that one. More and more such platforms continued to appear in a single file format, forming a long line that stretched up through the darkness in a vertical manner. Even with a brief flash of light signaling each platforms arrival, the formation soon became too long for Sora to see where it was going from his current position and how far it ultimately reached. But the red and black clothed teen knew what this collection of platforms was without needing anyone to tell him the answer.

' _A staircase,'_ he thought, letting loose a sigh at the sight of it and the silent promise of further physical activity. Oh, how desperately he wanted to close his eyes and take a nap right now. _'Well… at least it's better than the entire pillar suddenly breaking apart beneath me or being swallowed by whatever that black stuff really was.'_

All the same, after everything that had happened to him so far, Sora was very reluctant to see where these new platforms would lead him and discover what the silent voice had waiting for him at the end of the newly formed staircase. It would probably be another cylindrical pillar but it was what might occur on top of said structure that really made the teen reluctant to get up and move on.

Still, Sora had yet to find any way out of this weird place himself. Not that he had much of a chance to look for one given how busy he was most of the time. And the voice clearly wasn't interested in just letting him out if he asked. With that in mind, there was really only one thing the brown haired boy could do in this situation.

With a small frown adorning his young face, the teen pushed himself off the painting. Forcing himself into a sitting position, he took a hold of his discarded sword with his right hand, having a feeling he was going to need it later, especially if there were still more fights to come. Using the blade as a makeshift crutch, the blue eyed boy forced himself onto his feet and started making his way towards the staircase, his sword held loosely by his side as he did so.

As he crossed the surface of the circular portrait, Sora took slow and steady steps in order to conserve his remaining strength. Even with his unhurried pace, it didn't take him long before he reached the first platform. Stopping before the floating construct, the young islander looked down at the structure and its counterparts behind it, examining their surfaces with slightly narrowed eyes.

Lacking a central image, each of the flat rectangular platforms instead carried a wild collection of different colors that were kept separate from one another by solid black lines of varying widths. The fragments of color were also of different shapes and sizes themselves. The painting style made the island raised teen think of fragments of colored glass being hastily joined together in disorganized clutters. As his eyes moved from one platform to the next, Sora took note of the fact that no two platforms possessed the exact same combination of colors and that no single color decorated two separate portions of any one platform.

But the painting on these platforms was not why he was currently hesitating to start his climb. His frown deepening slightly on his face as his gaze returned to the first platform, Sora carefully lifted his right foot into the air and pressed it down on said structure in order to test its strength. It held against his weight, not making even the slightest shift from its position as he pressed down upon it. Despite its thin appearance and how it seemed to hover without support in midair, the thing was as solid and unyielding as the much larger pillar currently beneath his left foot.

' _Guess that's that,'_ Sora thought, sighing slightly as he closed his eyes. _'This thing isn't going to collapse underneath me.'_

He wasn't as reassured as he could have been by the thought, not after everything else that had happened so far in this strange place. The spiky haired teen decided to take climb slowly just in case, wanting to play it safe and conserve his strength until he reached wherever this long line was taking him at the same time.

With his decision made Sora started making his way up the makeshift staircase. The width of each platform beneath him forced the teen to step once with each foot on its cool surface before ascending to the next. Looking over his shoulder as he reached the tenth rectangular shaped platform, the brown haired boy noticed the pillar he had just left was still there if he ever decided to go back. Forcing his gaze upwards, the red and black clothed teen continued his ascent, counting the number platforms he stepped over in his head as he went.

' _16, 17, 18, 19,'_ the young islander counted softly to himself as he climbed, somewhat surprised that the voice was not telling him to hurry it up. Deciding he didn't care, Sora lowered his gaze as he passed number twenty and twenty-one in quick succession.

He wasn't looking at the platforms themselves but rather the black void further below them, his vision slightly obscured every time he moved to a new platform. The teen wasn't entirely sure what inspired him to do this as there was nothing fascinating down there. Boredom perhaps?

Or maybe he was trying to see if he could find three sets of glowing yellow eyes staring up at him from somewhere down below in order to get a sense about how deep the plunge would be from his current location. He found not a single pair of said eyes, the three creatures who had previously fallen off the last pillar having either gone deeper than what Sora's eyes could see or become somehow obscured by the darkness below, if they didn't just burst into smoke upon reaching the end of their downward plunge.

Either way, Sora was not inclined to jump after them, given that he was far more interested in getting out of this place than falling deeper into it. So he raised his gaze and kept on climbing, counting the wide steps as he went while occasionally glancing up at the star-like light above. He quickly saw that it was getting bigger the higher he climbed, and the boy felt like it was expanding slightly more than it would if the thing was an ordinary light. He snorted lightly at the thought, well aware by now that there was nothing ordinary about this place at all.

' _62, 63, 64, 65, 66,'_ Sora continued to count, his blue eyes soon noticing a slight shift in the formation of platforms as he moved along it.

Rather than continuing to climb in a straight line, they were now turning to the right directly in front of him. Following the platforms with his gaze, Sora's blue eyes narrowed when he saw that they were leading him towards another tall cylindrical pillar. One that had somehow appeared in the distance without him noticing it in spite of the large rows of shimmering golden glass shining along its length. The teen wanted to chalk it up to himself being distracted but wasn't quite so sure after everything he had already seen in here in this weird location.

' _At least one thing is consistent with this place,'_ Sora told himself, though the thought was not reassuring. Either way, he forced himself to keep going while his grip tightened slightly around the hilt of his sword.

By the time he reached platform number 100, Sora had reached the point where he could see the top of this new pillar and that the rising line of platforms did indeed end against a section of its round edge. As he continued to ascend the floating staircase, the spiky haired teen silently wished for this to be the last pillar he would come across before he got out of this place.

Eventually stepping off the last platform, the one hundred and thirty-fifth in the line, Sora stopped walking after only two more steps forward and lowered his head to observe the new painting below his feet. Primarily golden yellow in color, this one depicted another princess-like young woman. Slightly older than Sora, this woman had red hair and was wearing a sleeveless yellow dress with long yellow gloves covering much of her arms. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to have been painted while in the middle of a conversation with an unseen figure.

The circle that resided the center of the image was mostly white in color based on what little of it Sora could even see. That entire section of the painting was dominated by the head and shoulders of a large furred figure looming behind the woman's wide skirts. Covered in light brown fur, the figure seemed to have a permanent slouch to their posture while small black horns poked out of its bestial face. Fang-like teeth were visible in the figure's slightly open mouth and a long thin line of darker brown fur trailed down on the back of the creature's head and neck, vanishing beneath the faded grey cloak it wore over its shoulders. The creature was painted looking directly to the woman's left, while what might have been its furry tail was poking out past her skirts on the right side of the image.

' _Wonder who that is supposed to be and what they are doing with this princess,'_ Sora thought, tilting his head to the side slightly.

He wasn't one to judge people based on their appearances but the two of them together seemed like an odd pair to the blue eyed boy. There is probably a story there he isn't privy to at this time.

Titling his head upwards, he saw that the second circle behind and above the two painted figures seemed to be made of golden stone with cracks running along the surface and a brown frame. Seven smaller bronze circles resided within, the one closed to the center of the whole portrait all but completely obscured by the cloaked shoulders of the furred creature. The center bronze circle seemed to bear the yellow tinted shadow of a flower with three heads and several leaves. The one directly past it bore a crimson rose with a green stem under a golden vase. The remaining four bronze circles housed a faded yellow clock, a candlestick, a teacup, and a teapot respectively, all of which had been decorated with human facial features and expression, with the first two even mimicking two different human poses.

The first and thickest of the three outlines seemed to be made out of faded brown stone with thin black lines woven among them. Golden circles adorned with white shadows decorated this outline, with the circles bearing images ranging plates, cutlery, teapots, small birds, and brooms. One circle, lurking directly beneath Sora's feet at this time, had fallen crimson rose petals instead. The middle outline resembled slightly curving bronze squares, each decorated with a pair of yellow leaves standing in a V-shaped formation. The final outline consisted of two lines of extremely thin yellow tinted brown bricks separated from each other by black lines.

Noting how this pillar seemed more brightly lit than the previous one, the spiky haired teen turned his blue eyed gaze upwards to look at the star-like light above. It had grown to be almost as large as the sun on Destiny Islands during a mid-summer day yet possessed a sort of ghost-like appearance in comparison. It was also nowhere near as bright as the sun and thus, not as painful to look at. It actually looked quite pretty right now to the red and black clothed boy.

Slowly walking towards the center of the portrait, Sora called out to the soundless voice. "All right, what do you want me to do now?" he asked, his grip further tightening slightly around the hilt of his sword. He hoped it wouldn't be a fight.

 _The closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes._

As the voice's latest set of words echoed within his mind, Sora frowned in slight confusion as it stating such an obvious fact. A person's shadow always stretches past them when they get closer to a source of light, whether it be the sun or a lamp. Why was it bring up something like that now?

Stopping just before the center of the pillar's round ceiling, the spiky haired teen turned to examine his own shadow as it stretched back towards the staircase of floating rectangular platforms. Platforms that had somehow disappeared behind him without a sound at some point after he first stepped onto this pillar, leaving the brown haired teen stranded on this portrait with his only way off being a long downward plunge into the darkness.

Ignoring that for now, Sora stared down at his shadow. He noticed how it had become pitch black under the glare of the much stronger star-like light above. It had also grown much longer than before, its total length almost three times as long as Sora himself was tall. It didn't quite reach the edge of the round painting though, the shadow stopping short of it by a very small distance.

' _What are you after?'_ Sora thought, thinking of the silent voice. The answer came to him shortly in a very different manner than he had expected.

Having been looking straight at his shadow at the voice's prompting he did not miss how it suddenly pulled away from him. His shadow's legs suddenly snapped away from where Sora's feet touched the painting, effectively cutting the connection between him and said shadow. Before Sora could even blink at that occurrence, his now severed shadow started to peel itself off of the pillar directly right before his eyes, starting with the head and shoulders.

"Wow," Sora cried out in genuine shock, leaping back a short distance in surprise at the sight.

It didn't take his shadow long to complete its transformation. Its previously flat form rounded itself out as it rose up, coming to stand on its own two feet before Sora. Its features were a perfect copy of Sora's own appearance, only painted entirely black everywhere and several times larger than the teen himself. And where Sora's own eyes would have been found on the large apparatus, a pair of glowing yellow orbs now peered down at him.

"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no," Sora chanted in fear as he slowly moved away from the giant standing before him, walking backwards while his eyes were locked on his own enlarged face.

Whatever mysterious force had been keeping his emotions from affecting him had disappeared completely now and the new wave of terror was hitting the spiky haired teen's brain with full force. There was no way he was going to fight this thing, much less fight and win.

 _But don't be afraid._

"I am out of here," Sora called out, totally ignoring what the silent voice just said. True to his words, he turned around and ran away from his own enlarged shadow as fast as his feet could carry him. By some small miracle, he did not drop his sword during his sudden flight, his grip having become deathly tight instead as a result of his newfound fear.

He almost did lose the weapon when his attempt to escape was forced to come to a sudden end after he had reached the edge of the pillar. The red and black clothed boy barely managed to catch himself before he flew over said rim and his upper body leaned forward when he suddenly stopped, pushed onward by his own momentum and nearly dragging him into a deep plunge toward whatever waited in the darkness below. His sword almost slipped through his fingers as his arms flailed at his sides while attempting to steady himself but he managed to keep hold of it.

"This is insane. You are completely insane," Sora screamed at the voice, sweat running down his face as he turned to look back at his enlarged shadow.

As his blue eyes fell upon the thing, the island raised boy discovered that it had gone through many changes while his back was turned. Quite significant ones too. So much so that the creature looming before Sora couldn't even be called his own shadow anymore.

The obsidian monster still managed to retain a humanoid appearance and the pair of glowing yellow eyes it had before its unseen transformation but it had also grown slightly taller than before and much more muscular than Sora was. The obsidian copies of the teen's clothes and accessories had disappeared leaving the creature standing before seemingly naked in comparison to Sora. It stood up on what seemed to be disproportionally short legs. How it managed to stand at all was a mystery to the red and black clothed boy because it had no actual feet, its legs instead ending in a pair of small upwards curling tentacles.

Its arms were much longer than Sora's own were in proportion to his body, able to easily reach down to touch the surface of the painting while it stood up at its full height. They ended in large hands which possessing four elongated fingers and a single large thumb, all of which came with a sharp nail attached to the tip. Two small bat-like wings poked out from the back of the monster's shoulders, their tiny size making it impossible for them to be anything more than accessories on the creature's large form instead of actual instruments of flight.

The two biggest and most disconcerting changes for Sora however, were in the creature's torso and head. A massive heart-shaped hole dominated the goliath's abdominal area, piercing all the way through the beast and leaving it without any sort of stomach. The teen could look right through the creature's torso because of it and see a portion of the portrait behind the monster and the dark void beyond that. The shadows of his long spiky hair had grown in number and become a mass of writhing tentacles that wiggled around the creature's head, obscuring its entire head from sight except for a small section around its yellow glowing eyes.

' _What is this thing?'_ Sora asked, swallowing nervously as he took a hold of his sword with both hands. He highly doubted, given its similarities to the monsters from before, that this thing was friendly.

 _And don't forget…_

"Oh, shut up. There's no way I can fight a monster like this on my own," the thoroughly terrified teen interrupted the voice. Looking up at the beast's head, he could not help but lament, _'I was kidding about the tentacles earlier.'_

* * *

 **And cut. That's a wrap for now.**

 **The second half of this chapter was a surprising pain to write and I ended up cutting it again because it was getting too long. I've barely even started writing the battle between Sora and the Darkside heartless, which will fill up the majority of Chapter 03 as we came to the end of The Dive To Heart. I know some people will probably think I made Sora too much of a coward at the end but I would like to remind you that in canon he actually did try to run from the Darkside heartless when he first saw it. I simply tried to add dialogue to that section and show that like any normal kid, being taken to a strange place and forced to fight against deadly monsters had pushed him to his mental limits.**

 **In comparison, the first part of this chapter practically flew from the keyboard and onto this page. It only took me a single day to write it all and I largely kept coming back a few times over the week for spell checking and add in tiny shifts here and there. I don't think I need to tell anyone who our three questioners were this time, do I? And in case you skipped it earlier, they are not wearing recolored variants of the coats used by Organization XIII but recolored copies of the the one used by Addam from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Before anyone gets too excited about their involvement, we will not be seeing them again for a long while to come. There may be mentions and glimpses of them over the following chapters but no true appearance.**

 **I skipped the part of the tutorial with the ghost door cause I didn't really find it relevant or something that could be neatly added in outside of a game format. I had the questions take place on a new pillar because the shift to the ship on Destiny Islands seemed kind of pointless to me as all it did was give you a brief prelude of what the islands would look like in the game. Also, in case anyone is having trouble to imagine the shadowed figure on the new pillar, look up Deathwing from World of Warcraft. They've got a good profile image of his face and chest so take a look and make him pitch black in your mind's eyes.**

 **As for why I didn't use Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie for the questions... can anyone tell me why they were used in canon in the first place? Because aside from an early shout out to the Final Fantasy series, I can't think of a good reason. I also didn't want to use people that were connected to Sora's home on Destiny Islands.**

 **I tried to make Sora as human as possible here and I apologize if this chapter seems to be a little jumbled and going all over the place. That said, I am done writing for the day and will get started freshening up his battle with the Darkside heartless tomorrow. Next chapter we will definitely be wrapping up the Dive To Heart.**

 **Until then, it's time for me to get back to Kingdom Hearts 3. Still not sure how I feel about the new gummi ship battle system. Story wise, I am currently on the Pirates of the Caribbean world and lvl 68. Square Enix has clearly learned from the previous games not to make the heartless and nobodies so reluctant to give out EXP and synthesis materials.**

 **Later all.**


	4. Chapter 03

**Hello folks, welcome to the latest chapter of Kingdom Hearts - Awakened Fate. As promised, we will be concluding the Dive To Heart sequence of the first games prologue here today. There aren't as many changes here as there were last time since it's just a boss battle throughout the chapter.**

 **I have, however, given Sora a new ability with its own set of rules that was inspired by a certain ability used by Corrin in Fire Emblem Fates and a power belonging to another character from a different but popular video game franchise. Let me know if you figure out who the second video game protagonist is.**

 **Banjofan: You're welcome. I am glad you are enjoying my story.**

 **TheGallopingCupcake: Thank you for your kind words. Reading them made me feel very happy and invigorated. Glad you liked my cameos. There's a plot related reason why I used that trio but I am not revealing that for a long time to come.**

 **Hope you all enjoy the next chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the any characters or creations of the Final Fantasy franchise, the Kingdom Hearts franchise, the Disney Franchise, or the Fire Emblem franchise. This story was created solely for the express purpose of providing entertainment for fun and the chance to improve my abilities as a writer.**

* * *

Kingdom Hearts – Awakened Fate

Chapter 03 – The Nightmare's Conclusion

 **Present Time,**

 **Unknown Location,**

"Can't we talk this out? Please?" Sora called out to the massive monster standing before him. He barely resisted the urge to take a backwards step, well aware that he was dangerously close to the edge of the painting. The red and black clothed boy did not wish to trip and fall off the pillar.

Regardless of whether it heard or even understood the young islander's request, the obsidian goliath did not react in anyway. Looking up at its face, Sora wondered if the thing even could speak with its mouth covered up by a few of the black tentacles sprouting from its head. While not a single tentacle was emerging from where the creature's mouth should be located, on account of its humanoid appearance, at least two of those appendages were wrapped over said location in a manner reminiscent of bandages.

' _Does this thing even need to breathe air?'_ a small part of Sora's frantic mind wondered. He had noticed how those particular tentacles reached up to cover where the tall creature's nose should be as well.

The spiky haired teen's thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt when the goliath started to move. Leaning forward, the monster stretched its right arm out to the side, preparing to swing it at Sora. The thing likely intended to try and knock him off the pillar's ceiling with said limb.

Hissing under his breath at the sight of the approaching attack, the red and black clothed boy forced himself to move forward a few steps in spite of his fear. Watching the large obsidian arm fly towards him as he did so, Sora rolled forward at the last second in an attempt to avoid getting hit. The spiky haired teen felt the limb fly over his body, nearly rubbing against his heels as it continued on its way.

Quickly ending his roll and pulling himself up into a kneeling, Sora looked over his right shoulder to see what the creature intended to do with its right arm next. The blue eyed boy was a little annoyed when he saw it coming back towards his much smaller body in the form of a backhanded swipe. The oversized limb was also moving at slightly lower elevation, rendering another roll ineffective as a means of escaping the attack.

Pushing himself to his feet, Sora carefully watched the limb approach him. Once he was sure it was close enough, the spiky haired teen crouched down and leaped over the large obsidian colored arm. He just barely managed to achieve the necessary height to avoid getting struck in mid-air, feeling and seeing the thing just miss the tips of its toes as it moved underneath his body.

Landing on his feet a moment later, Sora looked up at his assailant's face. He watched as the colossal figure silently rose back to its full height, seemingly done trying to swat him as if he was an annoying fly. For now at least.

' _Do I go after the legs? Or try hitting the arms?'_ the still panicking teen thought to himself, trying to decide where he was supposed to attack such a huge monster.

His chances of winning were beyond slim here. It was clear however that the young islander had no choice but to fight this colossus if he wanted to get out of this strange place, never mind survive this battle.

Having been looking right at the monster while those questions burned through his mind, Sora was had a clear view of the creature when it started moving again. One thin brown eyebrow climbed up the teen's forehead slightly when he saw the obsidian giant lower itself into a kneeling position where it stood. The monster lowered its tentacle bearing head as it did so, shifting the focus of its gaze from Sora to the two tentacles acting at its feet. In that same moment, it also crossed its large arms over the heart-shaped hole in its torso, obscuring the wound from Sora's sight.

' _What is it doing?'_ the red and black clothed boy asked himself. To his eyes, it looked a lot like this thing was hugging itself. An action that seemed completely out of the blue to the spiky haired teen, rendering him too confused to even contemplate trying to launch an attack himself.

With surprising speed, the obsidian goliath suddenly uncrossed its arms and threw them to its sides while raising its head to look up at the silvery light looming far above the pillar. Sora's eyes grew wide with shock when a large sphere of constantly swirling black and purple fire suddenly appeared out of thin air right before his eyes. Large enough to cover Sora's entire body, the blazing flame resided within the confines of the monster's heart-shaped hole.

Fearing that the tall creature was about to launch the fireball at him like a makeshift missile, Sora started running to his right in hopes of avoiding the attack. He theorized that if he could circle around the still kneeling goliath, he might be able to avoid whatever was coming next.

A reasonably loud _popping_ noise reached the spiky haired teen's ears almost immediately after he started running. Knowing it came from the large monster's location, Sora turned his head to look at the creature over his shoulder. His blue eyes found a fairly large orb of made what he could only be describe as swirling white, purple, and black energy moving through the air between him and the goliath.

It was heading straight towards the young islander and seemed to be following him. When Sora made a sharp turn to his right and started running in that direction, the sphere made a wide arc as it turned to follow him.

Looking past the new arrival for a second, Sora's gaze went to the still kneeling black titan. He saw that the strangely colored fireball was still attached to the beast's torso. So if that wasn't what was currently flying towards him, where did this new sphere come from?

Turning his head so he could face the direction he was heading, Sora saw that he was coming close to the edge of the painting. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to stop running in spite of the orb chasing after him. Since it had somehow come from the large goliath, the spiky haired teen resolved not to let it touch him. Standing in place, the red and black clothed boy waited for the strange orb to catch up to him. At the last possible second, he threw himself towards the painting's center as hard as he could.

The sphere didn't have enough room to turn and chase the young islander after his sudden maneuver. It slammed into the portion of the painting said boy had just been standing on, exploding as soon as it made physical contact with the pillar's ceiling. The sword wielding boy heard the detonation as clear as day behind him and momentarily felt the heat it produced reaching for his feet while he dived through the air.

Coming to land somewhat awkwardly on the right side of his body, Sora heard another _popping_ motion before he even had a chance to pull himself off the painting. The sound was almost perfectly identical to the previous one and it once again came from where the obsidian goliath was located.

Looking up, the spiky haired teen's blue eyes widened when he saw that the monster had somehow launched another one of those strange energy spheres at him. Having just started its attack run, Sora saw that the new energy sphere seemed to have somehow burst out of the large fireball still hovering within the colossal figure's heart-shaped hole.

Given that he was now even closer to the monster than he was before, the strange sphere had even less distance to fly over before would reach Sora. With a huff of discontent, the young islander forced his body to roll to the left and move further away from the goliath.

He just barely managed to avoid getting hit by the large orb, vacating the spot he was lying on just in time. Another small explosion erupted where the sphere slammed into the painting. An explosion Sora had just barely managed to turn his face away from in time, wanting to protect his eyes from the heat and the flare.

Pulling himself up to his feet as fast as he could afterwards, the blue eyed boy heard that odd sound once again. Looking over his shoulder, he turned and saw that the goliath had launched another one of those strange spheres at him. The spiky haired teen noticed that the large fireball seemed to be fading away where it hovered in place now, having lost much of its previous luster.

As he focused his gaze on the approaching threat, a sudden idea came to Sora's mind. Narrowing his eyes at the sphere, the spiky haired teen admitted to himself that was tired of running away and took hold of his sword with both hands. Once the glowing sphere was close enough, Sora swung the weapon as if it was a baseball bat and slammed the curved blade against the multi-colored surface of the orb.

To his surprise, despite having been counting on this this maneuver to work, he succeeded in knocking the flying sphere away from it. Pushed to the side by the sword, the sphere went flying towards the edge of the pillar. It exploded a few seconds after Sora knocked it aside, right before it reached the painting's rim.

' _A delayed reaction?'_ Sora asked himself, slightly curious. He felt the air shift behind him and recognized it as a silent signal that the goliath was changing its posture again. _'Well, at least I now know swatting those things out of the sky will actually work. That's good.'_

Turning back towards his large opponent, the spiky haired teen saw the creature again stood at its full height. The orb of swirling black and purple flames had completely vanished, not a single trace left behind to commemorate its momentary existence. The now absent fireball's owner seemed content to just stare down at Sora with its glowing yellow eyes, its body barely twitching in place as it loomed over the teen.

Taking the chance he believed was being presented to him, Sora ran towards the creature's left leg. Once he had come close enough to his target to attack it, the young islander swung his sword at the tentacle on the base of the limb, holding the weapon with both hands as he did so.

Right before the sharp edge of his weapon connected with the obsidian appendage, a shroud of purple colored flames suddenly erupted without warning around the monster's makeshift foot. The fire crawled up from the pointy tip of the tentacle and reached as high as the monster's large knee. The heat the new blaze emitted was enough all by itself to make Sora feel as if he had just been punched in the gut by a large and unseen fist.

The spiky haired teen instinctively cancelled his attack and recoiled from the tentacle shaped foot, not wanting to risk setting himself on fire by continuing the maneuver. Repeatedly jumping back a few steps to get away from the sudden blaze, Sora watched with wide blue eyes as the purple flames vanished as quickly as they appeared. The conflagration had seemingly waited for him to move back a certain distance before dying down.

Panting slightly and nearly consumed by the fear brought on by his most recent near-death experience, Sora struggled to calm himself down. Lucky for him, his opponent didn't seem to mind waiting for the teen recovered and just stared down at Sora as he did so. The young islander didn't take too long to regain his composure.

' _Ok. Going after the legs won't work then,'_ Sora thought to himself once he had regained his self-control. He scowled slightly, feeling a mixture of anger and consternation. The feet were the easiest portion of the creature's large body for him to attack and they just had to come with some sort of dangerous defense mechanism. _'Wonderful. Now how am I supposed to fight this thing?'_ the young islander asked himself.

Likely oblivious to Sora's bitter thoughts, the oversized monster decided it had waited long enough and that it was once again its turn to attack. Out of the corner of his left eye, Sora saw it slowly clench the overly long fingers of its right hand into a fist.

As the red and black clothed boy lifted his head to better see what was going on, the goliath raised its newly made fist and pulled the appendage past its head. A seething mass of purple flames and black shadows appeared out of thin air and surrounded the enclosed hand during the motion. Believing the goliath was going to try and punch him with the now flaming appendage, Sora leaped to the side as soon as he saw the limb start to move forward.

His guess was partially correct. The monster was indeed throwing a downwards flying punch but the flaming fist was not aimed at Sora's current location at all. Slamming against the surface of the painting, the appendage came to rest where Sora had been standing before the obsidian colossus had first tried to swat him with its arm at the start of the fight.

The purple flames and flying shadows around the fist vanished from the oversized fist as soon as it connected with the pillar's ceiling, the collision generating a small shockwave in all directions. The sudden gust of air reached Sora and threatened to knock him off his feet where he stood. He barely managed to remain standing through the sudden assault, an idea blossoming in the back of his mind during the struggle.

"I think the big guy just gave me a chance to do some damage to him," the spiky haired teen told himself. He quickly regained his balance once the wind died down. Before he had the chance to charge towards the large hand, Sora saw a sight that caused him to freeze in place.

A small pool of swirling black and purple liquid was starting to appear on the pillar's ceiling, spreading out from where the large hand rested against the painting. It didn't stretch out very far from the appendage and formed a circle around the enclosed fist, covering a sizeable portion of the painting's primarily yellow painted surface.

The mere sight of that familiar water once again caused Sora to feel extremely uncomfortable for some reason. Even after managing to forcefully push that feeling to the side, the young islander still hesitated to advance. If he stepped into that water, something he had to do if he wanted to reach and attack the goliath's fist given its diameter, would he be dragged under the puddle's surface again?

' _I got to take the chance,'_ the spiky haired teen told himself, trying to harden his resolve. Breaking into a run, he forced himself to cross the distance between him and his target.

It took him eight rapid steps to reach the edge of the puddle. His left foot made contact with the water first and the blue eyed boy winced at how could the black and purple water felt against his bare skin. To his surprise, the water didn't attempt to pull him into fathomless depths again. In fact, the spiky haired teen could feel the base of his foot make contact with the solid and unyielding pillar's ceiling just beneath the liquid's surface. He wasn't going to sink into this stuff here, a realization that brought a large surge of relief to the young islander's heart.

A grin broke out on Sora's face, partially due to joy at his recent discovery and partially out of terror he still felt in regards to this whole situation. Continuing his advance, he waded through the puddle and raised his sword overhead with both hands while he moved. Coming to a stop before his target, Sora brought his weapon down in a powerful swing and slashed the obsidian goliath's thumb.

The red and black clothed boy definitely saw and felt his blade make contact with obsidian flesh in front of him. But, as was the case with the smaller creatures he fought earlier, there was no mark of any sort to indicate he had struck the goliath just now.

Ignoring that, Sora raised his weapon again and slashed at the monster once more. He proceeded to attack it again and again as fast as he could, an almost wild desperation to his movements. The spiky haired teen felt every single one of his strikes landed without fail but he never left a single mark upon his foe.

All the while, he remained unaware the numerous small dark shapes with glowing yellow eyes that were slowly rising out of the strangely colored water around him.

After managing to land strike number twenty one against the large monster's hand, the spiky haired teen paused to catch his breath and began to wonder just how many times he was going to have to hit this thing before it burst into black smoke like the smaller creatures from before. The similarities between its appearance and theirs is what made him think the giant would fade away in a similar manner. But that theory failed to tell him how many strikes it would take to win this fight. One hundred? Two hundred? Five hundred? A thousand?

That particular train of thought only served to remind the young boy just how much of an uphill task bringing this titan down was going to be. But it was a challenge he had no choice but to see through to the end. Assuming he wasn't supposed to just power through it for as long as possible.

Surely, the silent voice would intervene if things got too tough for the spiky haired teen, right? It had kept him alive so far and clearly wanted something from the young islander. Unfortunately for Sora's resolve, said possibility was not particularly reassuring at this time.

After raising his blade with his right hand alone in preparation to perform strike number twenty two, Sora cried out in surprise and pain. He felt something small and sharp suddenly stab him in the back without any sort of warning. Staggering a single step forward on instinct, the red and black clothed boy quickly spun around to see what had just attacked him.

As he came to a stop, his blue eyes managed to just catch a blurry black mass decorated with two glowing yellow dots flying up to his face just before it smashed into his chin. The sudden strike immediately caused his head to reel back while simultaneously knocking the dazed teen off his feet. It was only his back coming to rest against the large obsidian fist behind him that prevented Sora from falling into the swirling pool of black and purple liquid.

"What-" the young islander started to say, slightly disoriented after the sudden blow. A sudden coughing fit took hold of him, preventing the brown haired teen from finishing his sentence.

Before he had a chance to regain control himself, Sora felt himself getting slashed in both legs near simultaneously by sharp objects. A loud scream erupted from his mouth when he felt that sensation, the pain rendering him unable to continue standing upright on his legs alone. Throwing his left hand out to the side, Sora grasped a section of the goliath's fist just before he started to fall down. His grip was just tight in enough to stop his collapse.

Reopening his blue eyes a moment later, Sora lowered his head and lurched slightly in surprise when he discovered that three of the small creatures from two of the previous pillars were standing before him. More of the beasts were pulling themselves out of black and purple water swirling around Sora's feet.

Were they using the liquid to cover up their arrival on this pillar? Or was the goliath somehow using this water to call them to its side? Either way, the sight of these familiar monsters caused Sora to feel a rush of anger. Anger that only multiplied when he realized that they were the ones who just attacked it and that one of them had hit him in the back. He hated it when someone did that.

"Oh, great. You guys again," Sora all but snarled the words.

Seeing one of the creatures approach from his side, he lifted his right leg up just in time to avoid getting slashed there again. He stomped his assailant in the head as hard as he could with the attached foot but the blow didn't seem to faze the beast at all.

Slashing down with his right hand and striking the creature on the head with his sword did make the beast buckle slightly. Ignoring the hand of the colossus for now, Sora slashed the thing two more times. Both blows landed on the creature's head and it transformed into rapidly fading black smoke right after the second one had landed.

Unfortunately, another monster with a completely identical appearance took its place. After lifting his head slightly, the young islander saw that these creatures were continuing to grow in number and closing in on him, pinning him against the goliath's hand.

' _Not good. They're swarming me,'_ Sora thought to himself, swinging his sword at another one of the creature's when it tried to stab him. He hit the approaching claw and blocked the approaching strike instead of slashing the monster on the head by accident. After executing a quick backhanded slash, Sora managed to hit the creature on its face.

' _I need to get out of here,'_ the red and black clothed boy thought to himself, stabbing his sword forward and poking that same monster in the face with the weapon. The blow managed to drive it back slightly while its brothers closed in one the teen. Another one of the strange creatures even placed itself directly in front of the monster Sora had just attacked, making it impossible for him to strike at his target for a third time.

More of them were appearing on the other side of the giant's hand, Sora realized, after seeing one of these monster leap over the large limb from the other side out of the corner of his right eye. It landed amongst its brothers and soon turned to face the spiky haired teen as well. Its arrival only increased the notion that the spiky haired teen was stuck in a bad situation.

A hiss broke out of his lips when one of the creature's managed to stab him in the upper portion of his right leg. He really needed an escape plan, right now. Help ended up coming from a most unexpected and unlikely source.

Without noticing any sort of forewarning beforehand, Sora suddenly felt the enlarged fist he was pressed up against vibrate slightly behind him. At the same time what little he could see of the darkly colored liquid, thanks to the all of the small monsters now surrounding him, vanished from the pillar's surface. It felt like the water just faded away into thin air around his feet.

The exact moment after the strangely colored water disappeared, the young islander felt the obsidian goliath begin to actually move instead of just vibrating in place. Quickly tilting his head backwards in order to look up at the thing, Sora discovered that the colossal monster was in the process of rising back to its full height. And it was unintentionally taking Sora along for the ride thanks to the spiky haired teen's unsteady grip on the monster's right hand. Lifting the red and black clothed boy into the air, the black colossus proceeded to carry the young islander over the heads of its much smaller minions.

"Wow," Sora cried out after being suddenly rendered airborne against his will. One of the small critters tried to stab him in the left foot while he ascended but he flew out of its reach just in time. Another one of the creatures jumped at him from the right but its leap fell short of the boy as he continued to rise higher and higher.

Sora's unexpected ascension didn't last long however. Due the rather weak and awkward nature of his grip on the large hand, it soon became impossible for Sora to maintain his hold on said appendage. It slipped out from between his fingers while in the process of slowly uncurling itself, causing the spiky haired teen to plummet back towards the circular mural below him. Landing feet first, the island raised boy wasn't able to keep his balance this time and promptly fell forward onto his hands and knees.

The good news was that he had not landed among the small black colored monsters with glowing yellow eyes. The bad news was that those beasts were only a short distance behind him and the brown haired teen could hear that some, if not all them, were currently running towards him. Throwing himself onto the left side of his body, Sora immediately began to roll sideways as quickly as he could to gain some distance between himself and the critters.

Rising into a crouch after stopping his roll a short distance away from where he had landed, the sword wielding boy wasn't happy to see that his latest maneuver wasn't as effective as he would have liked it to be. One of the creatures was almost upon him, racing towards his body on its flat feet. Another one decided to jump over its brother and this creature flew towards Sora's face with a claw ready to stab him there.

Simply ducking down where he crouched caused the second monster to sail harmlessly over Sora's head. Once it had flown past, the young islander rose to his full height and engaged the monster running towards him. Stepping to the side to avoid the slashing claw aiming for his stomach, Sora slammed his sword down upon the creature's head while holding the weapon with his right hand alone. He quickly struck the thing two more times in a similar manner, once on the head and once on its small back.

The creature burst into black smoke right before Sora's eyes after the third blow landed. The smoke very soon disappeared, not leaving even a single piece of soot to smear the portion of the painting the monster had just been standing on. Pushing that observation aside, Sora focused on the battle.

He could see more of those strange creatures coming his way, including the one that had previously leaped past him. Since that monster was alone right now and coming at him from a different direction than the rest, Sora decided to focus on it first.

Slamming his sword onto its round head with a two-handed downward swing, the young islander all but squashed the creature against the pillar's ceiling. As he moved past the flattened monster, the spiky haired teen slashed the thing two more times while holding his sword with his right hand alone once more. He didn't need to look back to know it had burst into smoke behind him. The faint popping sound that reached his ears as he moved away was proof enough that it had happened.

Running away from the other critters and ignoring how the motion was causing a painful fire to ignite in his chest, Sora looked up at the large goliath with his left eye. He wanted to see what it was going to do next since it was literally the biggest threat to the blue eyed boy's existence right now.

To the spiky haired teen's surprise, that particular monster was just standing in place, looking down at Sora with its glowing yellow eyes. The obsidian goliath seemed content to just stand and watch as Sora fought against its smaller comrades. What was its game? The thing could easily squash him flat with one hand if it really tried. It was so tall the colossal monster didn't even need to try and walk towards Sora to do that. Can it actually walk on those odd feet?

The sound of rapid footsteps reached Sora's ears and pulled him out of the new spiral of questions consuming his mind. His lungs felt like they were burning inside his chest and it was getting difficult to breathe. Forced to come to a halt by these discoveries, the spiky haired teen turned around as fast as he could and saw three of the small monsters were about to reach his location. As soon as he laid eyes on the trio, the one on the far right of their loose V-shaped formation decided to leap at Sora's face.

Crouching down to avoid the attack, Sora lifted his sword into the air before him with an upwards stabbing motion. He managed to poke the creature in its small belly with the weapon's tip just before the thing flew over him, pushing it slightly higher and disrupting its balance in mid-air as it flew past.

One of the monster's perfectly identical brothers closed the distance remaining between it and Sora in the meantime. The creature slashed at his left leg with its claw but the young islander managed to pull said limb back just in time to avoid the blow. Taking a hold of his sword with both hands, the red and black clothed boy attempted to bring the weapon down on the monster's head with a two handed chop.

The attack never landed.

The last member of the trio decided to perform a flying head butt while the brown haired boy was focused on its partner. Launching itself through the air, the creature proceeded to slam headfirst into the flat side of Sora's descending sword. The collision caused the jumping monster to fly away from the young islander while staggering the teen at the same time, cancelling out his intended attack.

The monster Sora had been trying to attack took just now advantage of his somewhat paralyzed state and stabbed the spiky haired teen on his right foreleg with one of its small claws. The boy cried out because of the pain from the blow. His voice rose slightly in pitch when the monster he had poked in the belly earlier returned and stabbed him in the back. Bending forward slightly as a result of the latest attack, the brown haired boy almost head butted the monster that just stabbed him in the leg by accident.

"I am seriously getting sick and tired of you guys," Sora snarled as he pulled himself back to his full height. As he raised his head, there was a very faint and repeatedly flickering glow emanating from his blue eyes. Said glow disappeared completely as soon as he was done talking.

Growling in an almost animal-like fashion, Sora held his right arm and the currently attached sword out to the side before quickly spinning in place. His sword managed to strike both of the creatures that had just assaulted him in the head, knocking them back slightly. Recalling that he had struck the one behind him once already just before his spin came to a stop, Sora decided to deal with it right away. To give himself time, he stabbed forward with his right hand and pushed the creature in front of him further back with his sword.

With that done, the spiky haired teen leaped off the painting and twisted around in mid-air. Lifting his sword up and over his shoulder with both hands now grasping the hilt, the brown haired boy brought it down upon the monster's head as he landed. The creature burst into smoke upon contact and the sword continued its descent, slamming harshly against the pillar's circular ceiling.

' _Again,'_ Sora thought to himself, grimacing as he watched the weapon vibrate slightly in his hands while his arms grew numb from the elbow down.

Spinning in place again, he tried to attack the monster currently behind him but the final member of the trio had returned without the teen noticing until it was too late. It stabbed him in the thigh before he could fully finish turning around, causing Sora to stagger backwards as a pained cry left his lips.

"You're done," Sora angrily announced to the creature as soon as the pain had passed. Dimly aware that his arms were no longer feeling numb, he looked down his target with angry blue eyes. An unwelcome disruption prevented the young islander from immediately following through with his declaration.

A sudden _whoosh_ of air slightly above his head caught Sora's attention. The young islander looked up and saw that the large goliath was done standing like a statue for now. It had shifted slightly in place, moving its left arm in a manner that clearly signified it was preparing to perform a backhanded strike. Its target was clear to the fourteen year old even before the oversized limb started swinging in his direction.

"Seriously? Now?" the red and black clothed boy called out to the colossus. He wondered what was going through the creature's brain. Did it actually even have one?

One of the two critters directly in front of the spiky haired teen chose that moment to stab him in the stomach with its small claw, bringing another cry of pain from Sora's lips. He managed to recover just in time to leap over the goliath's moving arm.

To his annoyance, Sora saw that the two monsters he was fighting just now were short enough for the limb to pass harmlessly over them. One of them had even begun to peel itself onto the painting using that weird shadow trick of theirs, having started the process just before or while the colossal arm flew over its head. Taking his eyes off it for now, Sora focused on the other monster and swung his sword towards it with his right hand as he descended back to the painting.

The creature staggered when the blade made contact with its round head as Sora landed on his feet beside it. The small beast wasn't able to make a single move before the spiky haired teen regained his bearings and struck it two more times. The third blow caused the thing to burst into smoke.

Looking over his left shoulder, Sora saw the now fully flattened monster had decided to run away from the teen but he had no time to follow it. The blue eyed boy saw that another one of those strange creatures coming at him from his left. Turning towards the thing while swinging his sword, he intercepted the monster's claw in mid-stab.

Both the small creature and the young islander recoiled from the impact. As in similar such incidents, Sora had the faster recovery speed and he nailed the creature with a vertical upwards slash to the chin. Twisting his wrist slightly as the swing came to an end, Sora performed a backhand swing and harshly slapped the monster on its cheek with the blade. Before he could press the advantage, the sensation of something small and sharp stabbing him in the back reached his brain, causing his body to stagger forward.

' _What,'_ the spiky haired teen thought to himself in confusion. Turning his head to look over his left shoulder again, he saw another one of the small monsters standing right behind him, twitching its head in a slightly erratic fashion.

' _When did it get there?'_ the young islander wondered, having neither seen nor heard its approach. Was it the same one that had flattened itself earlier and attempted to run away? Did it circle back around or was this another one that used the same shadow trick to soundlessly sneak up on him?

The small monster Sora had been about to defeat chose that moment to remind the teen it was still alive by stabbing him in the stomach. A cry of pain burst from the young islander's lips as he bent over slightly. As the creature withdrew its claw from his stomach, an angry growl erupted from Sora's throat.

' _This is getting ridiculous,'_ the teen thought to himself in aggravation. Out loud, he barked, "Back off."

Once again throwing his right arm and the currently attached sword to his side, Sora rapidly spun in place while swinging the weapon in a wide arc. The blade struck both of his assailants as it cut through the air, the one Sora had almost defeated bursting into rapidly fading black smoke upon making contact with the sharp steel edge. As the second beast reeled back from the attack, Sora grasped his sword with both hands and he struck the creature's face two more times with the weapon. Like its counterpart, it burst into black smoke after being hit three times by Sora's sword.

Panting heavily as his exhaustion threatened to consume him, Sora didn't bother watching the latest puff of smoke fade away in front of him. Looking over his shoulder again, the spiky haired teen could see more of these strange yellow eyed creatures were coming towards his location. Meanwhile, the obsidian goliath was still looming above him where it stood and watching Sora with its glowing yellow eyes.

Scowling at the sight of the thing, Sora raised his sword and swatted at the closest of the approaching critters, driving it back with a blow to the head. Silently, the red and black clothed boy asked himself, _'Even if I get past these things, how am I supposed to take the big one down?'_

The legs, the easiest part of the goliath for the spiky haired boy to reach, were clearly not a good target for him to focus on. What was to stop that monster from once again summoning that shroud of purple flames around its foreleg if he got too close? And while he managed to land a fair number of blows upon its right hand earlier, how many more did he have to land on the monster for it to finally disappear? Assuming he actually did any damage to the large creature by striking its fist earlier.

Once again losing sight of the battle due to the questions currently running through his head, Sora failed to see one of the smaller critters approaching until it was too late to do anything. Slipping past his guard, the monster proceeded to stab the teen in the side of his left leg. As he cried out from the pain, Sora felt the limb buckle beneath him.

Releasing the grip his right hand had on his sword, the spiky haired teen just barely managed to plant the appendage against the mural covered ceiling of the pillar to prevent him from falling flat on his face. Swinging his sword in a wild manner with his left arm, Sora tried to slash at the monster that had just attacked him to no avail. It had done the sensible thing and pulled itself back out of range before he could attack.

Before the sword wielding boy managed to get back on his feet and chase that monster, one of its brothers leaped onto Sora's back from somewhere behind the spiky haired teen. Its sudden arrival and surprising weight succeeded in driving him face first onto the painting. Luckily, his head was turned slightly to the side so Sora's right cheek slammed against the image instead of his nose.

Not done tormenting him, the creature on Sora's back proceeded to poke him from above with one of its small claws. The attack brought forth another cry of pain from the brown haired boy's mouth. Another monster, possibly the same one that had stabbed him in the leg a short while ago, decided to join in the Whack-A-Sora game. It slashed him on his left shoulder with one of its small claws just before the monster standing on the pinned teen's back stabbed him in the back again.

' _Got to get this thing off of me and back on my feet,'_ Sora thought to himself through the pain, just barely suppressing another scream as he felt the beast on his back stab him for the third time in a row.

If he stayed here on his belly like this, it was all over for the spiky haired teen. He was a defenseless and sitting duck in this state, an easy target for both the small creatures harassing him and the obsidian titan looming over them all.

Refusing to allow any of these monsters to just attack him with impunity, Sora pushed his body to the right and started to roll across the painting in an attempt to dislodge and crush the small monster on his back. It was a struggle to get moving due to the monster being heavier than it looked but the sword wielding boy managed to succeed in doing so. He failed to crush the creature beneath his body when he rolled over the critter but getting it off his back was enough for Sora at the moment.

After being forced by his exhausted form to take a second to catch his breath, Sora pushed himself up with his arms and leaped to his feet. Said feet landed dangerously close to the edge of the pillar and Sora was momentarily stuck rooted in place, a rather powerful amount of shock surging through him as he realized just how close he had come to falling off the edge of the painting. With wide blue eyes, he looked down at the all-consuming darkness below his location while his toes poked over the pillar's rim and wiggled slightly in mid-air.

Snapping out of his stunned state shortly after it had begun, Sora whirled around to continue the battle. He turned around just in time to receive a stab in the gut from one of the small monsters. As he cried out because of the pain from this attack, Sora just barely managed to resist the urge to take a step back. The young islander was well aware that there was nothing for him to stand on behind him. He knew he couldn't fight these things effectively while keeping himself from falling off the edge of the pillar at the same time.

Grunting through his teeth, the spiky haired teen raised his sword over his head and took hold of it with both hands. He brought it down hard on the head of his latest assailant, practically cleaving the beast in two with the blade because it burst into smoke before him the very second Sora's weapon came into contact with its forehead. The young islander just barely stopped himself from hitting the painting with his sword, not wanting to feel the vibrations from the impact going up his arms again.

Wanting to get away from the edge of the pillar, the spiky haired teen lunged at the small monster closest to his location, releasing the grip his left hand had on his sword as he did so. He slashed at the creature with his right hand alone holding the blade and knocked the thing aside with a single blow.

Before he could try and finish the small beast, he saw another one jumping at him from the side. Ducking under the thing, Sora decided to change targets and ran up to its descending form. He struck the beast from behind three times in quick succession as it came to land awkwardly on the painting's surface. It burst into smoke after the last attack landed on its small back.

Turning around, Sora did a quick visual head count of all the small creatures left on the pillar. He was going to ignore the big monster as long as it just stood over the center of the painting and left him alone in turn. The red and black clothed boy still wasn't sure how exactly he could hurt that thing and but he knew if focused on that creature right now, the smaller ones would not hesitate to gang up on him like they did earlier. There may not be as many of them now, but it was too big of a risk for the spiky haired boy to take with his current level of fatigue.

' _Four more to go,'_ Sora thought to himself once he was done counting the small monsters. He could hear his breathing coming out in heavy gasps and the fire burning fiercely in the center of his chest was a raging storm. He didn't have much time left before he would collapse from exhaustion.

Blue eyes narrowed when two of the small monsters did that transformation trick of theirs directly in the spiky haired teen's line of sight. Flattening themselves against the primarily yellow colored mural, the two beasts started moving towards Sora. The other two were also heading his way, running on their flat feet but not moving as fast as their flattened counterparts. The one closest to Sora seemed to be trying to circle around the brown haired boy, likely intending to try and attack him from either the side or the back.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to injure the creature while it was in this state, Sora merely kept his gaze on the monster for now. He planned to attack the creature as soon as it had finished peeling itself off the pillar's ceiling. After turning slightly in place to keep the thing in his line of sight, the spiky haired teen felt a large gust of wind fly over his head.

Looking over his shoulder to find out what caused that sudden feeling, Sora saw that the obsidian goliath was once again kneeling where it stood. It was also hugging itself again, covering the majority of the large heart-shaped hole in its torso with its long arms. The sight of the colossal creature in that position caused Sora's eyes to go wide with horror.

"Again," the teen cried out, speaking directly towards the goliath. He wondered why the wretched thing was choosing now of all times to try and blast him with those strange energy spheres.

Something small and sharp struck him in the side of his stomach before Sora could decide what to do in response to this sudden development. Crying out in pain, he stepped away from whatever had hit him on instinct. Looking down at his feet, the sword wielding boy saw that the small creature he'd been planning on attacking had peeled itself off the painting and stabbed him in the side while he was distracted by the goliath.

Before Sora could retaliate against the smaller critter, he felt another gust of wind blow over his head. Realizing that the larger monster was about to launch its own attack on the blue eyed teen while his back was turned, Sora wasted no time in attacking the small monster standing before him. He slashed it three times in quick succession with his sword, each attack striking the beast on the head. Like the rest of its kind, the thing burst into rapidly fading black smoke upon the third hit.

Twirling around where he stood, Sora intended to use his weapon as a makeshift baseball bat once more and knock aside the first of the approaching energy spheres. He had only a second to realize he was too late before that one slammed into his upper torso, exploding against the teen's body the instant it connected with Sora. The force of the explosion was strong enough to send the young islander on a short trip through the air.

After landing painfully on his right arm and nearly hitting the side of his head against the painting, Sora scrambled to get back on his feet. His first move was a long sideways roll to get away from where he had just fallen, knowing by the faint popping sound he barely managed to hear that another one of those spheres was on its way. It slammed into where he just had been lying down on the painting within seconds, the resulting explosion nipping at Sora's feet just as he pulled himself to his full height and started to run further away from that spot.

Knowing the monster was going to fire at least one more of those attacks, Sora ran across the surface of the painting in hopes of escaping it. He saw one of the smaller creatures step into his path a short distance in front of him, the strange monster likely trying to intercept the spiky haired teen and slow him down.

Not wanting to risk getting stabbed by one of its short claws, Sora forced himself to stop and slashed at the thing with his sword. He was a little surprised to see that one hit was enough to make this monster burst into smoke before him. The red and black clothed boy shook his head, understanding he must have struck this creature twice at an earlier point in the fight without being able to land the final blow until now.

This encounter almost cost Sora as the brown haired teen saw another one of the strange white and purple spheres flying at him out of the corner of his eye. Not trusting himself to be able to spin around in time to knock it away, Sora instead decided to leap over the thing when it got too close.

As it made contact with the section of the painting directly below him, the sphere proceeded to explode just like its predecessors. Sora was far enough away to not come into contact with the colorful eruption but the shockwave it generated still managed to disrupt his balance in mid-air. The spiky haired teen landed ungracefully upon the pillar's ceiling, falling to one knee as soon as he made contact with it. Using his left hand to steady his body this time, Sora just kept himself from falling onto his face at the last second.

One of the surviving yellow eyed critters decided to remind Sora that it was still here. Coming at him from the side, it stabbed the spiky haired teen in his right hip while he was pushing himself back up to his feet. As a cry of pain left his lips, Sora stumbled in place and just barely managed to keep himself from falling back down again.

Out of the corner his eye, he saw that the black skinned colossus was pulling itself back to its full height. Just like before, it only fired three of those glowing spheres in succession before stopping the attack. Suspecting that said goliath was just going to stand there and watch him for a while, Sora decided to use the time until its next attack to destroy the remaining two critters on this platform.

Rolling a very small distance to his left in order to put some distance between himself and his latest attacker, Sora quickly pulled himself to his feet once he came to a stop. The monster decided to leap towards his face when the young islander looked at it. Swinging his sword towards the creature, Sora watched as the blade and claw harshly slam together. Both combatants recoiled from the impact, the distance between them increasingly slightly as a result.

Bringing up his left arm, Sora quickly switched which hand was holding his sword and slashed at the creature while it was still in mid-air. His first attack hit it in the belly while the second one slammed into its forehead. Slashing upward in a vertical manner, Sora's last blow landed on the creature's chin with enough force to knock its head backwards before it burst into rapidly fading black smoke.

' _Where's the last one?'_ Sora thought, silently ordering himself to find the creature and get rid of it as quickly as possible. He spun himself in place in order to locate the thing.

He quickly discovered said creature was nearby and leaping towards the young islander. By sheer accident rather than skill, Sora's weapon slid under the approaching monster's guard and slapped it in the belly with enough force to knock it away from the surprised teenager. Nearly dropping the sword from the force behind the sudden collision, Sora watched with wide blue eyes as the creature flew a short distance away from him and landed ungracefully upon the pillar's ceiling.

Soon realizing this was his chance to get rid of the thing, the spiky haired teen quickly closed the short distance between them and struck the creature two more times while holding his sword with both hands. It burst into rapidly fading black smoke upon the assault's conclusion, leaving the red and black clothed boy with only the obsidian goliath for company on top of this circular pillar.

Even as his breath came out in heavy huffs and puffs while his lungs felt like they were being used as fuel for a non-existent inferno, Sora felt a small grin work its way onto his face. He couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment at having successfully defeated another batch of these strange monsters. The grin disappeared from his face when he remembered just what he had to do now.

"…All right. Now for the big guy," the spiky haired teen told himself, his low voice displaying a steep lack of confidence. A very unusual occurrence for the usually upbeat teen.

Forcing himself to turn and face the beast, Sora looked upon the titan just in time to see the creature start pulling its right fist backwards in preparation for another punch. His blue eyes widened at the sight of purple flames and black shadows covering the obsidian appendage one again. Afraid that the burning fist was actually being thrown in his direction this time, Sora started running to the side.

He needn't have bothered because the goliath wasn't aiming for him at all, just like before. The flaming hand descended with great speed towards the painting and slammed into a section several footsteps to the right of Sora's last position. The collision simultaneously dispersed the flames and shadows swirling around the appendage and created a shockwave that extended outwards in all directions. Having braced himself for the last part, Sora managed to stay on his feet with a little effort when the rush of air reached him. The fierce winds did force him to close his eyes out of an instinctive urge to protect them though.

Once the shockwave died down, Sora turned to regard the newly planted limb, intending to slash it with his sword as many times as he could. Before he took even a single step, the spiky haired teen saw another small circular pool of black and purple water stretching out from beneath the oversized fist. Quickly reaching the same size as the last one, it covered a small section of the pillar's mural covered ceiling. And while gazing at the newly formed pool, the red and black clothed boy saw that more of the small yellow eyed monsters were already rising to their flat feet.

Their numbers weren't as great as the last group's yet but the mere sight of the obsidian colossus summoning reinforcements one again was the last straw for the young islander. His patience, which had taken blow after blow during his forced stay to this strange place, finally slapped. There was no mysterious force inside his body to hold back the red hot anger rising in his chest. An emotion that quickly consumed both his heart and mind.

"Again! Are you kidding me?!" the thoroughly infuriated teen bellowed, holding his left fist up to his eye level and shaking it before his face. His right hand had a death grip on his sword and was seemingly locked in some sort of contact to see what break first under the pressure, the hilt or Sora's fingers.

None of the creatures before the teen, neither the goliath nor its much smaller minions, reacted to in any way to the teen's physical gesture and angry words. Given that they were both being directed at the soundless voice that was pushing Sora along ever since he first came to this strange void instead of the monsters in front of him, the red and black clothed boy couldn't bring himself to care.

Throwing his left arm to the side in a slicing motion, Sora pulled his head back and glared up at the shimmering white light hovering far above his location. His eyes were flickering slightly as he gazed upon the mist-like shine.

"What's this all about?! How much more do you expect me to fight?!" the teen loudly called out to the mysterious voice, his blue eyes were locked onto the distant light. "What do you want from me?!"

He received nothing but more silence for his cries. Not a single word from the strange voice popped into his mind. Whoever this person was, they were refusing to speak to him once again. Ignoring him and his wishes to leave.

The rage in Sora's breast nearly doubled in strength at the thought. The faint flickering turned into a powerful blue glow that completely covered his eyes just before he opened his mouth once more.

"ANSWER ME!" the spiky haired teen bellowed at the top of his lungs.

As soon as those two words left his lips, the glow emanating from his eyes instantly increased in strength by a massive amount. To look upon them was to look at two miniature blue suns. And the changes did not stop there.

The strange glow quickly spread out from Sora's eyes to cover the rest of his body, starting with his face. The rest of his head, including his hair, and neck were the next to become shrouded in the azure light. His crown pendant and accompanying necklace remained untouched as the glow extended to cover his entire torso, shirt and jacket included, and both his shoulders. The glow extended down the length of his limbs, covering both skin and clothing, as it rapidly stretched all the way to the tips of his toes and fingers. Only then, once everything but Sora's sword was enshrouded in the light, did the crown pendant also become encased by blue light, seemingly sinking into it as if it were water.

The transformation happened in less than a second, with the curved form of Sora's recently acquired weapon the only thing untouched by the light. For just a single instant, the young islander resembled a giant blue light in the shape of a human rather than an actual teenaged boy. A single instant because this strange transformation dispersed as quickly as it came.

A sudden shockwave, greater than all the ones that had tormented this pillar before it, erupted from the teen's form and threatened to send the obsidian goliath's newly summoned minions flying off the painting. As it raged on top of the pillar, the blue glow burst off of Sora's body as if the whole shroud was made of glass and something had just struck it, shattering the light into many small shards. Those shards rapidly faded away from Sora, who emerged from his glowing cocoon quite drastically changed.

A faint glow still emanated from his eyes, tinted blue around his irises and silver on the whites and pupils, as infrequent and small bursts of blue lightning briefly appeared around his heavily modified body. Much of the color had faded from his spiky brown mane, the locks of hair almost completely white as every single spike was now pointing away from his face, the tips vertically pointing upwards in roughly the same direction. Three horns resembling steel blades now erupted from his head, also pointing backwards in a vertical fashion. The smallest horn, which was barely a third the size of its two colleagues, possessed a slightly hooked appearance while it poked out from the top and center of his forehead. The larger horns poked out on opposite sides of his head just above his ears and possessed a rough L-shape as they did so.

Sora's entire forehead, the top section of his nose, and the upper half of his cheeks were now covered in elongated and diagonally placed silver scales. These scales were outlined and kept separate from one another by faintly glowing blue lines. The back and sides of his neck were adorned with a similar scale pattern, which extended down to cover much of his shoulders. The glow of the scales' outlines were visible through short sleeves of Sora's jacket. As shown by the glow also emanating from beneath his coat and shirt, the scales also covered the majority of his back and the sides of his torso before coming to end just above his waist. Two powerfully glowing veins of blue light were located on his back, breaking the uniformity of the scales located there. They stretched down from his shoulder blades, their tips forming a triangle formation with Sora's belly button around his waist while the shape of these new lights caused them to resemble large curving fangs.

While his upper arms remained unaffected, the majority of Sora's hands and forearms were covered in that same scale like pattern. Thin lines of blue light were emanating from underneath his fingerless gloves and across his forearms. His fingers themselves were unaffected by the scale-like pattern, but his fingernails had lengthened slightly and now curved faintly like claws. His toenails were in a similar state. While his feet, waist, and upper legs were untouched by the scale-like pattern, the scales and their blue glowing outlines covered much of his forelegs.

Snarling like an enraged animal as he glared towards the goliath's outstretched fist and the small creatures around him, Sora appeared completely oblivious to the chances that had come to his body. His mind was consumed by a raging whirlwind of rage, the volume of his anger reaching levels no one in Destiny Islands believed the normally easy-going spiky haired teen was even capable of achieving.

A loud bellow left the transformed teenager's mouth as he gazed upon his foes, exposing the fact that his teeth had somehow transformed into small fangs inside his mouth. In the next instant, Sora was streaking across the platform and heading straight towards the goliath's closed fist. He appeared utterly unaware of the fact that he was moving almost three times as fast as he was before and that his body was no longer wracked with growing exhaustion. Small momentary blue sparks were left in the air to briefly mark his trail as he moved, disappearing as quickly as they came.

Three of the small creatures had already pulled themselves out of the puddle of swirling water and they were running to engage the teen. Sora slammed into the first one like a freight train, swinging his sword vertically in front of him as he did so. The curved blade sliced the monster in two with a single blow, the two parts quickly changing into rapidly fading black smoke. Not slowing down his charge in the slightest, Sora pushed right on through the dark haze, causing it to briefly cover his leg and belly.

As he started running past the remaining two members of this trio, Sora spun in a circle while throwing his sword out wide. The sword struck the monster on his right in the head, the creature turning into smoke even though the attack had been little more than a glancing blow. Its counterpart had been in the process of leaping towards Sora's left shoulder when the blade reached it, causing the weapon to slice the monster in half at the hip. Like all its brothers before it, the creature burst into rapidly fading black smoke.

Facing forward at the end of his spun, the outraged teen continued his advance. Seeing another of the creature's leaping out of the strange liquid on a collision course with his face, Sora roared like an enraged lion and slashed his sword horizontally in front of him. Slamming directly into the black monster's right side, the weapon managed to just push the creature out of Sora's path right before it burst into black smoke like all the others.

Seeing another creature trying to stab him in the left foot as he completed the slash, Sora instinctively realized he wouldn't be able to reposition his sword in time to block the creature's stab or attack it first. Therefore, he pulled back his left leg and kicked the monster in its round head. This time, the act carried enough force to send the thing flying off its feet. It moved through the air until it slammed hard against the enclosed fist of the obsidian goliath, which was still resting were it had landed on the painting's surface.

Fearlessly striding into the black and purple liquid surrounding that oversized appendage, Sora destroyed two more of the small monsters with furious downward chops of his sword. One of their brothers leaped at him from the left but Sora merely backhanded the creature in the face with his left arm. The dismissive counterattack sent the creature flying off the edge of the pillar. Not even bothering to confirm if that creature was gone or not, Sora leaped across the distance remaining between him and his main target, raising his sword above his head as he did so.

Swinging the weapon down with all his might, Sora struck the large hand with a fierce downward chop as he came to land before it, his feet causing a large splash when they struck the strange water and the ceiling of the pillar beneath it. Despite feeling the sword make contact with the giant's fist, there was still no mark of any sort to indicate that any attack had just landed. Taking a hold of his blade with both hands and striking the black appendage two more times with it had the same result.

' _Nothing. Still nothing. Why?'_ Sora thought to himself, the words sounding like a growl in his mind as they broke through the angry crimson haze enveloping his mind. Something small and sharp struck the teen in the upper section of his right leg, diverting his attention from the goliath's hand.

Grunting more out of annoyance and surprise than a feeling of actual pain, the transformed teen looked to his right and saw one of the smaller critters had come at it from the side. Even with all the rage clouding his mind, the young islander quickly realized that the pain he just felt was a result of this thing stabbing him in the leg with one of its small claws. Lips peeling back with an angry snarl, Sora swung his sword at the beast with his right hand alone grasping the hilt. The blade of his weapon vertically slashed the creature's round head and the beast turned rapidly fading black smoke where it stood.

His sword coming to rest at his side afterwards, a sudden idea came to Sora when he saw the smaller creature's destruction. The thought managed to punch through the cloud of anger in the transformed teen's skull and enter the brain lurking within in the skeletal confines. Looking up at the tentacle covered face of the obsidian goliath, a small frown appeared on Sora's face as he considered whether to go through with the sudden notion or not.

' _It's worth a shot,'_ he decided after a moment, struggling to resist the powerful urge to just chop everything around him into tiny pieces. _'Now how do I get up there?'_

Seeing one of the smaller monster's leaping at him from the corner of his right eye, Sora lashed out with his blade and struck it in mid-air. The beast vanished immediately upon being struck, its smoky remains momentarily covering a portion of the sword while the weapon cut through the air.

A slight rumble now coming from his left caught the red and black clothed boy's attention. Turning slightly in place, he saw that the goliath's large arm was shaking slightly in place. Quickly looking down, Sora witnessed the final moments of the swirling pool of black and purple liquid before it went and faded away around his feet. Not a single smudge or trace of it remained to tarnish the painting Sora stood on.

A quick look around him showed that there were six of the small critters standing near him. At least a few more were probably on the other side of the obsidian titan's fist, the large hand shielding them from the transformed teen's gaze.

That same hand was now starting to rise off the platform's ceiling while its owner was pulling itself back to its full height in the center of the painting. The sudden movement was taking away Sora's best and likely only chance at reaching the giant monster's head. Realizing this, Sora's glowing eyes widened in surprise for a moment before narrowing in anger as he growled lowly.

"No, you don't," the angry boy snarled, the words directed more to himself than the obsidian goliath. Bending down slightly, the teen launched himself into the air and managed to land on top of the slightly uncurled fist.

His balance wavered as his new perch continued to move under his bare feet. After managing to steady himself slightly by grabbing the large dark colored limb with his left hand, Sora looked up at the goliath's face and saw it staring down at him with its glowing yellow eyes. Snarling like an angry beast, Sora started to climb up the thing's long arm as quickly as he could.

He barely made it to the monster's elbow before he was forced to slow his movements down to the rough equivalent of an awkward crawl. The constant shifting of the large arm beneath him made it impossible to move swiftly and keep his balance at the same time. If Sora just hastily rushed towards his destination, he would very likely slip and fall back towards the painting. As angry as he was, the young islander understood that fact and moved accordingly.

Looking to his left by accident or sheer coincidence, the young islander saw the goliath's left arm was starting to move as well. The horned teen's eyes widened when he saw the attached hand was coming towards him, fingers spread in a manner that clearly indicated the colossal creature intended to grab Sora's much smaller body. The sword wielding boy scowled at the thought, having not the slightest intention of allowing such a thing to happen. Instead, he decided to take advantage of the approaching appendage and use it to reach his goal.

Crouching down slightly with some difficulty because of the moving mass beneath him, Sora waited until the last possible second before he jumped. After barely managing to fly over the goliath's open hand, the red and black clothed boy proceeded to land on the beast's left forearm. Rolling slightly when he landed, Sora just barely managed to grab onto the thing and keep himself from falling to the painting below him.

Looking up at the monster's face, the spiky haired teen grinned somewhat savagely as his locked onto those of the pitch black titan. Quickly pulling himself to his feet on the creature's left arm, Sora let loose a wild cry and leaped towards the monster's head. As his body ascended to a slightly higher altitude than his target, he raised his sword overhead and grasped it with both hands just before he started to descend. Roaring as he came down, Sora slammed the weapon directly between the monster's glowing yellow eyes as he fell past his target.

When he saw the large goliath's upper body reel back from the sudden blow, a wild grin broke out on Sora's face. The young islander could admit to himself that he was slightly disappointed by the fact that the colossus managed to stay on its tentacle-like feet rather than completely fall over from the blow. Still, the visible confirmation that he had finally done at least some damage to the monster was extremely invigorating for the spiky haired teen.

Managing to land on his feet, Sora crouched down in place and pulled his right hand away from his sword in order to steady himself with it. Hearing footsteps coming from his left, Sora simultaneously raised his head to see what was coming while lashing out at with his sword. He watched as his blade slammed into the charging form of one of the small black critters, horizontally striking it in the face.

The beast promptly dispersed upon contact with the sharp edge of said sword. Swiftly climbing to his feet, the spiky haired teen saw more of those monsters coming towards him and called out to them.

"Come and get some of this," he yelled. To articulate his point, he swung his sword at the closest of the approaching monsters. The creature vanished as soon as the left-handed swing connected with its face.

An excited grin broke out on Sora's face, prompted by this latest victory and the strength coursing through his body. He didn't know why but the spiky haired teen finally noticed how his body was absolutely brimming with strength and energy he didn't know he had. More than he had ever felt before in his life. He felt like he could take on the whole world, all the worlds, by himself. It was absolutely fantastic.

Alas, all good things must come to end.

Without warning, the young islander's exhaustion suddenly returned full force and it was much greater than before. Its arrival was so sudden that Sora cried out as if he had been physically struck and fell down to one knee, barely managing to steady himself with his right hand. His body was briefly encased in another cocoon of blue light and when it faded, his horns and scales had vanished. His spiky locks had returned to their original appearance while his eyes were no longer glowing.

' _What… why now?'_ the teen thought to himself, still oblivious to the changes that had just vanished from his body. His lungs were struggling to fill themselves with air and felt as if they were being crashed by walls of hardened cement after being set on fire. _'What's going on? I was winning!'_

Noticing one of the small monsters running straight towards him, Sora tried to get back up in preparation for its arrival. His body might as well have been frozen in place for it refused to obey his commands, his limbs barely even shuddering in place as he tried to rise. The young islander realized he wasn't going anywhere the mere second before the creature reached.

The small monster stabbed him in the shoulder as soon as it was close enough to do so. Sora cried out from the pain and fell on the left side of his body, wondering in the back of his mind why this monster seemed to hit twice as hard as its counterparts. Was it somehow stronger than them or was it all in his head?

More pain blossomed throughout Sora's body when another one of these strange creatures stabbed him in the back, having come up behind the sword wielding boy without him noticing a thing. Somehow managing to curl himself into a ball while he screamed, the young islander accidentally let go of his sword and felt the weapon slip through his fingers.

Lifting his head off the painting slightly, the spiky haired teen saw the weapon lying on its side within arm's reach of him. All he had to do was just stretch out his left arm and it would once again be in his grasp. His desperation to retake his weapon only grew when Sora saw another one of the small creatures running towards him one of the corner of his eyes. However, just as he started to reach for the sword, the weapon vanished without a trace before his eyes upon being consumed by a faint flash of white light.

' _What'_ Sora thought to himself, feeling a strong mixture of confusion and horror overtake his heart. He was so consumed by the feeling he barely noticed when one of the monsters surrounding him stabbed him with its small claw again. He did notice the pain from that blow and the pain he felt from when another monster hit him in the back. _'How am I supposed to fight these things without a weapon?'_

The pillar suddenly rumbled beneath him, dragging the spiky haired teen from his morose question as he felt something slam against painting, the impact site a short distance behind his body. Forcefully rolled onto his back by the shaking, Sora looked up past the round heads of the four small critters surrounding him and met the glowing eyed gaze of the obsidian goliath with his own blue eyes.

Having apparently recovered from the sword strike to its face, with the curved blade yet again failing to deliver any sort of scratch to the goliath's body, the massive beast had just punched the painting with its right fist. Its left fist came down as well, causing the pillar to shake beneath Sora again when the closed hand harshly came to rest against the pillar a short distance to his left.

' _I am going to die,'_ Sora thought to himself, feeling absolutely terrified as he looked up at colossal monster's glowing yellow eyes. More terrified than he had ever felt before in his life. _'Not here. Not like this. It can't end like this.'_

The young islander failed to notice that a circular pool of black and purple water suddenly appeared between him and the painting, spreading out from directly under his back to cover a circular portion of said mural. The red and black clothed boy only became aware of it after his body suddenly started to sink into the large puddle, which was much deeper than the previous two despite how there should still be a solid flat object directly beneath the surface of the water. The blue eyed boy immediately started to try and pull himself out of the liquid, ignoring how the small creatures around him just stood and watched him sink before their glowing eyes.

 _Don't be afraid._

Sora barely noticed the silent voice's words popping into his head just then. He was a little too distracted trying to get out of the swirling water. An attempt that was utterly foiled when black smoke began to rise out of the large puddle. The separate strands curled around the spiky haired teen's torso and limbs, somehow latching onto him like they were long vines instead of wisps of smoke. Their grip was incredibly strong and heavily restricted the teen's movements while pulling Sora deeper into the dark water.

 _You hold the mightiest weapon of all._

Not bothering to ask the voice why it was speaking to him now of all times, the young islander continued to struggle against his bindings. His tormentors, the large obsidian goliath and its smaller minions both, continued to just stand and watch him do so instead of taking the chance to attack him again. Sadly for the spiky haired teen, all Sora managed to achieve with his struggling was turning his body around so that he was lying flat on his stomach instead of his back as he continued to sink deeper into the strange water.

He craned his neck back in a desperate attempt to keep his head out of the black and purple liquid as the smoke slowly dragged him deeper and deeper into it. Sora could feel the pull on his feet grow especially strong, causing them to start sinking at nearly twice as fast as the rest of his body.

 _So don't forget:_

Ironically, his feet descending on their own was what finally pulled Sora's body into an upright position amongst the black and purple water. Considering that the liquid was well past his waist and quickly climbing up to his armpits however, the change wasn't as helpful as Sora would have liked. Especially since strands of smoke were still restraining him and pulling him deeper into the bottomless puddle.

He continued to struggle valiantly all the same but his right hand was soon pulled under the water's surface by the smoky trail grasping it in spite of his efforts. No matter how hard tugged it, the spiky haired teen couldn't pull it back out. The smoke's grip upon his right arm seemed to have doubled in strength after the limb entered the water. Its hold, assuming something else wasn't clutching Sora's right hand instead right now, was unrelentingly tight as it dragged the appendage deeper into the water.

Deciding that particular hand was a lost cause, Sora focused on swinging his left arm above and around his shoulders, trying to find something he could use as leverage to pull himself out of this stuff. Unfortunately, his hand found nothing but empty air all around him no matter which way he threw it. Even the small forms of the critters surrounding him were too far out of reach to be of any help right now. A brief moment of fatigue was all the smoky trails attached to the limb needed to finally drag it onto the surface of the swirling water. Sora tried, he really did, but he failed to pull the thing free and it too sank beneath the black and purple water.

Craning his head back to keep his eyes out of the swirling liquid, which was now almost reaching his chin, proved to be a mistake. Some of Sora's spiky brown locks got caught by whatever was dragging him down, and his body started to sink slightly faster than it had a moment ago. The young islander could do nothing but wait to drown because he couldn't even turn his head from side to side due to the tight grip on his hair.

Before the liquid ultimately swarmed over his head and robbed him of the ability to see, Sora's terrified blue eyes found themselves once again meeting the glowing gaze of the obsidian goliath. The massive monster peered down at him without emotion. Except for the tentacles still moving about its head, the creature was as still as a statue.

Soon, the dark water swam over Sora's face and blocked out his sight. Everything just seemed to fade away and turn to black, becoming unimportant to the spiky haired teen. He was suddenly beset by a powerful and unrelenting urge to fall asleep shortly after everything fade to black. Sora tried to resist the lure to return to slumber and ultimately failed. But he did feel the silent voice tell him one last thing before he drifted into oblivion.

 _You are the one who will open the door._

' _What door? I don't understand,'_ the spiky haired teen thought, barely managing to think the words through the gentle but unrelenting call to sleep consuming his mind. Oblivion welcomed him with open arms.

And then, Sora felt and heard nothing at all.

* * *

 **And Cut. That's a wrap.**

 **Writing this battle was a little tricky because of how the Darkside heartless likes to just stand in the center of the arena for the majority of the fight. I gave the ability to physically attack Sora with its arms so that it could have more methods of attack and heighten the danger Sora will feel when he fights its. You've probably noticed I avoided doing air combos so far right? I found that to be a little too advanced for Sora at this stage in jis journey.**

 **As for the aura of flames around its feet, I needed a real reason for Sora not to go after them. They're obviously the easiest portion of the Darkside's body for him to attack and it didn't feel right just making them invulnerable without explanation like in the game. If I was fighting a giant monster for the first time and scared out of my mind, I would try going after the closest and most vulnerable looking portion of the thing I could reach first. Therefore I gave the legs a dangerous defensive power to encourage Sora to stay away from the Darkside's feet. We've already seen that the Darkside heartless has the ability to manipulate dark fire in canon with the sphere in its chest so such a defensive aura doesn't seem too impossible. Before you ask, the Darkside on Destiny Islands is going to be a tougher than this one here and I am planning on giving it a few more abilities.**

 **Sora's new rage induced transformation was an honest to god pain to right mainly because I couldn't actually make up my mind about what it would look like, even though it is still in an incomplete state. I was never really a fan of Corrin's featureless mask transformation state in Fire Emblem Fates so I decided to replace that with something else by combining elements from an ability used by the protagonist of another video game series. It took me five rewrites before I got Sora to a transformation I was happy with as I didn't want to go full dragon or even half dragon just yet. In term's game mechanics, I will explain how this thing works in the next chapter but can anyone figure out how this thing works before then? :)**

 **That's all for now folks. I am off to watch a movie with the family and then get back to KH3. Sora is at level 95 and my gummi ship is at level 60. Still not entirely a fan of the new gummi ship system but it's growing on me slowly. I've decided to get the Ultima Weapon keyblade for once and I am going through all the side-quests and mini-games necessary to acquire it. See ya next chapter.**


	5. Chapter 04

**Hello all, welcome to chapter four of Kingdom Hearts - Awakened Fates**

 **This is going to be more of an interlude chapter, and it will introduce two familiar characters to my story. Gotta admit I am not too happy with it and I feel like I stretched the whole thing out. I knew from the moment I first started writing this story that this piece would be a challenge for me to write and I was dealing with writer's block all week while trying to make it work. Either way, this is one challenge I am throwing out there and putting behind me for the rest of my life.**

 **Southern Hearts and Banjofan: thank you for your kind words :)**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the any characters or creations of the Final Fantasy franchise, the Kingdom Hearts franchise, the Disney Franchise, or the Fire Emblem franchise. This story was created solely for the express purpose of providing entertainment for fun and the chance to improve my abilities as a writer.**

* * *

Kingdom Hearts – Awakened Fate

Chapter 04 – Riku and Kairi

 **A Short While Later,**

 **The Destiny Islands, Afternoon**

Despite how much he loved to just lie down and sleep the time away, it was impossible for Sora to slumber forever at his current age. Being young and full of vigor, the spiky haired teen would always wake up at some point in time regardless of how much he wanted to keep on sleeping at said moment.

This was one such instant.

His closed eyelids twitching slightly where they resided on his face, Sora felt himself slowly begin to return to a cognizant state of mind. The urge to awaken was entirely subconscious and it would not be denied, no matter how hard the red and black clothed boy tried to suppress it and return to his nap.

The compulsion grew stronger with every passing second and as it did so, Sora became more aware of the world around his prone body because his senses were activating by themselves one by one. The scent of the ocean water was the first thing the spiky haired teen took notice of, the smell incrementally increasing in strength as his mind drew closer to full wakefulness. He could feel the sun's rays pressing down on his face and felt that his body had been positioned so that he was lying flat on his back.

Recalling that he had laid down on the beach for a quick mid-day map, the red and black clothed boy became aware of the warm grains of sand coming into the contact with his body. They felt rather soothing where they touched the bare skin of his right arm, fingers, and feet.

Sora's hearing was the last thing to come alive on its own accord. It did not take long before the drowsy boy started to overhear several seagulls calling out to each other. The sharp shrieks erupted in a random and infrequent manner far above his location. It was a rather aggravating sound that the spiky haired teen did his best to block out and ignore, finding it difficult to return to slumber now that he was hearing such a racket. The cries almost drowned out the much more soothing sound coming from the ocean waves, a faint crashing chorus that resulted whenever their steady advance upon the beach was gently rebuffed by the warm sands.

Aware that he was fighting a losing battle now that his hearing had returned, Sora made one last stubborn attempt to return to the land of dreams. Unfortunately, the red and black clothed boy's efforts resulted only in failure. His body and mind refused to listen to his desires and continued to insist it was time for him to rise again.

' _Here we go again,'_ Sora morosely thought to himself. The spiky haired teen was rather put off at having his slumber come to an end once again. _'This is so unfair.'_

The young islander could not stop a loud yawn from escaping his mouth now that he was almost fully awake. However, he refused to pull his body up from where it lay on the sands. Some people would have probably called his refusal to move childish in nature. They wouldn't be entirely wrong because the red and black clothed boy was feeling more irritated then he usually did at the thought of having to wake up.

He couldn't fully explain it but Sora felt like his recently completed mid-day nap lasted for an unusually short length of time today. A part of him felt like only a few short minutes had passed from when he had first laid down on the beach. The spiky haired teen also didn't feel as rested and refreshed as he normally would have after one of his naps, further enforcing the idea that he hadn't slept for a very long period of time. However, he simply couldn't go back to sleep right now. His body just would not allow it.

Acknowledging the fact that there was no point in just lying down on the sands with his eyes closed while waiting for something to happen, Sora tried to convince himself that waking up was a good thing for him to do right now. He mentally reminded himself that he still had to finish working on the raft together with his friends.

Normally, the thought of work would further lower the teen's spirits but this was a group project with his two best friends and one meant to help the trio fulfill their shared dream. Despite his general laidback nature, Sora always made an effort to be a good and dependable teammate during such assignments, regardless of what the team was working on at the time and why. He strongly disliked letting down the people he cared about, especially his friends.

Speaking of his friends, Riku and Kairi should be back by now if not currently heading towards the raft's secret hiding spot. That meant they could finally finish their work on the raft once and for all, bringing the trio one step closer to starting their journey across the seas.

The thought was a partially effective source of motivation. While it managed to put down any lingering desire Sora had of returning to sleep, it failed to fully disperse the disappointment he felt at having to wake up in the first place. And, the spiky haired teen still felt largely indifferent to getting up and doing anything just yet. He hadn't even opened his eyes after all.

Sora decided to try and do something about that particular fact first. Pulling his right hand off the beach's sandy surface, the red and black clothed boy slowly brought the appendage up to his face. Once it was close enough, he gently rubbed his thumb and forefinger over the skin of his closed eyelids. After just a few wipes, his eyelids lost much of their strength and their tight hold over his eyeballs loosened tremendously.

Its job done, Sora returned his hand to its previous position on the sands. It was only after the limb had finished settling there that he made another attempt at opening his eyes. This time the young islander succeeded with a little effort. He was, however, forced to blink several times to make his vision come into focus and allow his eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight.

Since he had yet to stop lying down on his back, the first thing Sora saw after opening his eyes was the wide blue expanse known as the sky. The sun was still present and in a rather high location, making the red and black clothed boy believe the time of day was somewhere around early to mid-afternoon right now. Its position supported the idea that the teen's nap had been very short this time around.

A loose scattering of white clouds kept the glowing orb company on the great expanse today. They were spread out in a scattered and disorganized manner, placed too far apart and too few in overall number to make the young islander worry that the sky might start to rain anytime soon. The spiky haired teen paid them very little mind however.

Now that Sora was more or less fully awakened, his mind was focusing on something else. Due to a long ingrained habit more than anything else, as soon as he opened his eyes, the spiky haired teen started thinking about the dream he saw during his nap instead of wondering if he should or should not head for shelter at the moment.

' _That was… some dream,'_ Sora thought to himself, a small frown appearing on his face while he tried to recall just what he had envisioned during his nap. Seemingly unaware of the motion, he reached up with his left hand and rubbed its fingers against his forehead.

The young islander felt a mixture of surprise and annoyance upon discovering that he could only recall scattered bits and pieces of his latest dream, all of which were currently missing a lot of details. While not an unusual occurrence for the spiky haired teen, the blank spaces in his memory were far more apparent this time around and that set off warning bells in the back of his mind for some reason. It made Sora feel like something important had just slipped through his fingers.

While annoyed by this discovery, Sora was also relieved it hadn't been one of those naps where he woke up covered in his own body's perspiration and unable to recall a single thing he had been dreaming of while he slept. A quick glance at the palm and fingers of his left hand confirmed that.

Then again, as far as Sora could remember, those incidents only happened when he went to bed at night. Not during one of his mid-day naps. Either way, the frown on Sora's face grew slightly as he tried to force himself to remember just what had happened during his latest dream.

"There was a sword, a staff, and a bow…" the red and black clothed boy softly spoke to himself, slowly lowering his left hand back to his side. He seemed utterly unaware he was even speaking out loud right now, too focused on recalling what he had been dreaming of. "The staff was blue in color. The bow was… red? I think that's right. Can't remember the color of the sword. Grey mostly, I guess…"

Continuing to try and piece together his most recent dream, Sora continued speaking after a long moment. He was staring up the sky as if it held the answers he was seeking the whole entire time.

"I think I had to choose one of them… And then fight some weird creatures with the one I picked." His eyes narrowed even further as he tried to bring said creatures into focus and recall their appearance.

"They looked like… large black ants with glowing yellow eyes?" the young islander told himself, his tone taking on a skeptical note at that description. Yet, in spite of his misgivings, something was telling him that the depiction wasn't entirely wrong.

He couldn't recall how many of those things he had to fight over the course of his dream however. When Sora tried to bring his memory of the fight into focus, all he got were small disconnected portions of the battle. It was making it impossible for the spiky haired teen to recall the overall length of his dream.

He was however pretty sure that most of the monsters he fought against were smaller than him in size. At the same time, Sora got the distinct feeling that he had gone up against one larger than himself at some point near the end of his dream. He knew the thing had black skin and glowing yellow eyes but its actual appearance and overall size escaped the red and black clothed boy. How it fought was also a mystery to the brown haired teen but he had a strong feeling that particular battle had not gone his way.

' _Did I… lose?'_ Sora asked himself, his frown deepening a little more at the thought. While an easy-going person by general nature, Sora was always up for a challenge and he could be a very competitive person when in the middle of some sort of game or contest. As a result, he tended to dislike losing immensely.

Kairi would often say he was just being a typical boy whenever this came up in conversation between them, likely because it was an attitude he shared with the majority of the other boys around his age. It was largely the fact that he was usually competing against friends that enabled Sora to take his losses with grace whenever they happened on the islands. But losing to some strange monster he had never even seen before and couldn't properly remember?

Even if it had been just a dream, the mere thought of it stung the spiky haired teen's pride. He was one of the best fighters of his age group on the islands. Surely that had to count for something, regardless of the fact that the teens were always using wooden weapons during their bouts and that Sora had yet to fight anyone that wasn't from the Destiny Islands.

Pushing his wounded feelings aside, Sora tried to recall the scenery of his latest dream in hopes that doing so would help him piece the thing together. Thinking deeply, the young islander recalled, or at least believed, that he had been surrounded on all sides by an endless black void while standing on a large circle. Sora had a feeling that circular platform had some sort of image engraved on its surface but he couldn't decide what it looked like. Whenever he tried to focus on the platform itself his brain just couldn't decide what color it had been, never mind the image.

' _Was it painted blue or green…? Yellow…? Could there have been more than one?''_ the spiky haired teen thought to himself. His head was starting ache because of all the questions currently flying around his brain and all the probing he was doing in order to remember his latest dream.

So far the only thing Sora was certain of was that he had picked the sword as his weapon of choice at the start of his whole charade. It was not however a true recollection of what happened though. The spiky haired teen simply couldn't see any reason he would have picked a bow or a staff if he was being offered a sword instead.

Feeling his headache threaten to reach painful levels, the spiky haired teen groaned loudly and slowly tilted his head back. Because of the motion his hair sank deeper into the confines of his red hood, which had been pulled up this entire time to keep the sand out of his spiky brown locks. The brown haired boy also lifted both his hands off the beach and gently pressed them against his forehead.

Leaving them there for now, Sora closed his eyes to help himself relax. There was no point in keeping them open right now since his vision was almost completely obscured by his forearms. He tried to relax his brain, abandoning any further attempts to uncover what he had been dreaming about during his nap.

The red and black clothed boy decided then and there that solving this particular mystery wasn't worth the hassle of giving himself a migraine. It was only a dream after all and it was over now. By the end of the week, the young islander would probably forget all about it.

Fortunately for the spiky haired teen, his headache started to evaporate as soon as he stopped trying to recall what had happened during his dream. Slowly peeling his hands away from his face once his brain stopped hurting, Sora placed them back on the warm grains of sand located directly to either side of his waist. Just lying still on his back for a while in order to relax, Sora tried to entertain himself by counting out the number of clouds in the sky.

He very quickly got bored of that and pushed himself up into a sitting position with both arms. While his back and shoulders were being lifted off the sands, Sora's outstretched right leg curved slightly where it lay. His right foot came to rest a short distance away from the back of his left knee.

With his other leg still stretched as far as it could comfortably go, the two of them formed a rough horizontally flipped P-shaped formation where Sora now sat on the sands. The teen's hood still remained on top of his head and he did not bother to pull it off yet.

Holding himself up with both arms, the young islander gazed out over the ocean in front of him. He saw that the waves had climbed slightly farther up the beach since he had first gone to sleep but the water still had a fair distance to go before it reached his location. The ocean looked beautiful to his blue eyes right now. It shimmered slightly due to the sunlight and was currently in possession of a soft green tint.

At one point, Sora saw a small black fish quickly swim beneath the ocean's surface as it moved towards an unknown destination somewhere to the spiky haired teen's right. He didn't blink at its sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance because that was an altogether common sight while hanging out on the beach here at the Destiny Islands. Wakka would sometimes joke there were more fish in the sea than there were people on the islands considering how they never seemed to run out.

Slowly turning his head to the left, the young islander's eyes fell on the smaller of the two play islands. The sight of it was all Sora needed to remember he was currently on the larger of the two play islands. More specifically, he was on said island's large south-eastern beach. Had the spiky haired teen been on the larger island's other beach, which faced towards the north, he wouldn't have been able to see its small companion at all.

Much less the currently shrunken form of an even larger island far off in the distance behind the smaller of the two isles. That particular island was where the town Sora had been living in for the past nine years was located. It would take him roughly half an hour to reach it by rowboat.

That particular mass was too far away from the red and black clothed boy for him to be capable of making out any real details about its appearance from his current location. It currently resembled nothing more than a rather dark misshapen object, one that was blocking out a small portion of the boundary line separating the sky and sea. It almost looked like the landmass was connecting the two of them together.

In contrast, Sora could see the details of the small play island with perfect clarity. Not even a tenth the size of its partner, the isle resembled a large cylinder rising out of the ocean a short distance away from the beach. It was almost close enough to the shore that Sora could walk rather than swim through the salt water in order to reach its base.

The small island's rounded sides were composed entirely of smoothed grey rock while the majority of its flat top was composed of white gravel instead. Grass and numerous green bushes circled the edges of the island's top, the makeshift outline wider in some locations and thinner in others. A sparse and scattered collection of various flowers with differing colors and appearances was present amongst the greenery.

Palm trees were also located on this island, positioned over the surface of the isle's top in a random and disorganized manner. They were very few in number, which gave people plenty of room to maneuver should they choose to walk on the island's surface and little obstruction if they wanted to look out at the ocean while doing so. Most of the trees possessed very thin and almost fragile looking grey trunks while the remainder were in possession of much thicker brown trunks. Large green and yellow leaves sprouted solely from the top of each tree in a manner resembling a wide straw hat, a few coconuts resting beneath them on several trees.

There was one odd tree that looked very different from the rest however. Possessing a thick grey colored trunk, this tree refused to reach straight up towards the sky like the rest of its brethren. Instead, with a slightly curling trunk, this one threw its leaf carrying head a short distance over the western portion of the island's rounded edge before. It was only after the head had stretched a short distance past the edge that it started to rise towards the sky. The trunk's unusual shape and large width enabled it to act like a makeshift bench for people to sit on if they desired to. A second tree, this one in possession of a shorter and far thinner grey trunk, appeared to be trying to imitate a flattened and upturned U-shape directly underneath the improvised seat.

Instead of coconuts, several star-shaped orange fruit known as the paopu fruit were dangling underneath the large curling tree's green and yellow leaves. Sora himself wasn't a particular fan of these fruits, finding them to be too sour for his taste. He also believed that a certain old superstitious story surrounding them was utter nonsense.

Tilting his head a little more to the left, Sora saw that the smaller play island was still connected to its larger brother by a bridge composed of brown wood planks. The flat rectangular structure was wide enough for two, sometimes three, people to easily move across it while walking side by side. As it was a short and relatively harmless drop to the sands and water below the construct, this bridge had not been designed to include any sort of parapet on its sides.

However, it was still a little too high for Sora to just jump off the beach and grab hold of its edge. The tip of his fingers would always fall short of grazing the thing's underside whenever he made the attempt. Said attempt was usually spurred on by a desire to see how high he could actually jump or a dare with a friend.

From where the spiky haired teen currently sat, the wooden construct stretched past Sora's left shoulder before coming to an end on the larger play island. The hooded teen did not need to further turn his head in order to see where it was going. He was well aware that the other end of the bridge was connected to the top of a short hill located on the back of the beach, its steep sides covered by long vertically pointing wooden planks.

Twisting his head around to look to the right of his current position, Sora's eyes fell upon a small wooden dock. It was a simple thing, with multiple wooden cylinders pressed into the water just past the curved edge of the beach in a rather sporadic manner. Working together the tall thin logs hoisted up a rectangular pathway composed of flat wooden planks.

The construct was long enough for up to seven small row boats to rest side by side on the right side of the dock. Given that its left side was slightly peeking over the sands, no boats could be placed there without them first being dragged onto the shore. A single boat could be placed directly in front of the small pier, giving it the ability to house up to eight of them in total at the same time. Fifteen, if people dragged their boats onto the sands.

Even with their forms partially obscured by the larger wooden construct's numerous thin legs, Sora could see that only three rowboats were currently tied side by side on the pier's right flank. He knew for a fact that one of them was his and that another one belonged to Kairi. She had definitely remained on the two play islands when she went off to find more rope for the raft and her boat had still been here when he went to have a nap.

Riku, on the other hand, had taken his boat to collect the cloth they were going to need for the sail. Had he come back and walked off without noticing Sora sleeping on the beach? Or did he notice the spiky haired boy when he arrived and just leave Sora to rest in peace? Given his current personality, the latter possibility didn't seem very likely to the red and black clothed boy.

Either way, the presence of three rowboats on this pier was enough validation for Sora to believe that his best friends were both on the play islands once again. Which meant this was a good time for the spiky haired teen to head back to the raft. He ignored the possibility that the third rowboat might belong to another youth from the Destiny Islands instead of Riku.

' _Still… there's no need to rush,'_ the spiky haired teen thought to himself, turning his head forward in order to look out over the water again. _'They had me do all the heavy lifting earlier today. Let them do a bit more of the work before going to help.'_

It might be petty but Sora was still a little annoyed that he was the one who did all the heavy lifting today. Carrying heavy logs across the island while trying to avoid being seen by anyone else that could be present at the time was hard work. If the spiky haired teen had his way, he would have been the one looking for rope today. Alas, Kairi had picked Sora for the log collecting portion of today's work and Riku had stood by her choice.

' _He probably just didn't want to do it himself,'_ Sora thought, thinking of the slightly older boy with a small frown. Neither he nor Riku would ever have agreed to leave such a task to Kairi though she had offered several times in the past.

Then again, Sora wasn't quite sure where he would could find any rope right now. He also wasn't aware of any location with an easily obtainable cloth large enough to act as the raft's sail. He did know of a few places where he could look for one but they all came with a substantial risk of Sora getting caught in the act, which could expose the entire raft building project to the wrong people. People like Sora's adoptive mother and Kairi's overprotective guardian, who the three friends knew would not approve of their desire to go out on a journey.

As he looked out over the ocean, Sora once again saw a small darkly colored fish swimming underneath the water's surface. It was heading somewhere to the teen's left at a rapid pace but he didn't bother to get up in order to chase the thing. While the still hooded teen knew how to catch and cook the fish around here, the young islander didn't see the point in doing so today. He and his friends had brought plenty of sandwiches for the trio to eat for lunch after all.

Just thinking about the food they had brought with them caused Sora to remember he hadn't eaten a single thing since the raft building trio went their separate ways earlier today. A small rumble erupted from his belly at the sudden thought of food. The brown haired boy couldn't stop himself from lowering his head and smiling slightly in embarrassment despite being all on his own right now. The hooded teen was grateful there was no one around to overhear the sound that had just come from his stomach.

Lifting his arms towards the sky, the young islander pushed them out as far as they could go while vertically pointing them away from his head. His hands were curled into tight fists and his eyelids were tightly shut while he performed the sudden stretch. Triggering something in his chest with the motion, the red and black clothed boy was unable to prevent another loud yawn from escaping his mouth.

Feeling his arms and shoulders pop slightly while his sudden exhalation was coming to an end, Sora slowly lowered his hands to his sides. Once he had finished that particular movement, the spiky haired teen opened his blue eyes once more. He opened and closed his mouth several times as he gazed out at the ocean, looking like he was chewing on nonexistent food while doing so. After a few moments, he threw himself backwards in order to lie down on the beach again.

The still hooded teen was expecting to see the blue sky and white clouds above him when he finally came to rest on his back. What he definitely wasn't expecting to see was the face of a young girl with a pale complexion, blue eyes, and red hair looking down at him.

His response to that particular sight was immediate.

"Wow," Sora cried out in surprise, his body quickly lifting itself back into a sitting position. It was a small miracle his forehead didn't slam into the girl's own forehead during the sudden movement.

Because of the rapid change in his posture Sora's red hood finally fell off his head, exposing his brown locks and the back of his head to the open air. While his torso threw itself into a sitting position, all four of Sora's limbs stretched themselves forward as far as they could go. It almost looked like his hands and feet were trying to launch themselves off his wrists and ankles respectively. Thankfully they did were unable to succeed in the sudden attempt.

The shock the red and black clothed boy felt at the unexpected surprise exited Sora's system just as quickly as it entered. While his heartbeat returned to its normal steady pulse, Sora became aware of soft giggling emanating from somewhere behind him.

' _She's laughing at me,'_ Sora thought to himself, realizing that the redhead had not been a figment of his imagination and that she was quite amused by his reaction.

A small sullen frown grew on the young islander's face as his arms and legs relaxed on their own accord. Twisting his shoulders to the left, Sora turned his upper body around slightly so he could look at the amused redhead while peering over his left shoulder. His left arm became a crutch to help his upper body remain steady in place, the attached fingers slightly sinking into the warm grains of sand because of his weight.

Sora's frown threatened to grow further in size while he watched the girl's giggles turn into full-blown, but rather soft sounding, laughter at his expense. Were it anyone other than this particular girl, he would probably getting more defensive right now.

Being slightly shorter than Sora, the top of the red haired girl's head barely reached his nose. She was also more appropriately dressed for the warm summer climate than Sora currently was. Her upper torso was covered by two sleeveless tips, the white one worn over top of the black one. Their wide open collars exposed much of her collar bone and their short lengths left a small portion of her navel uncovered, her belly button included.

Instead of pants, the red haired girl wore a light purple skirt over slightly smaller shorts possessing a slightly brighter shade of the same color. Wrapped around her waist was a purple tint blue belt with a square shaped silver buckle. Neither her shorts nor her skirt extended very far down her legs, failing to cross even half the distance between her waist and her knees. The redhead's feet were encased in white slip-on shoes with purple caps and she did not appear to be wearing any sort of socks.

Like Sora, she had several accessories. A black choker was wrapped tightly around her neck and she also possessed a long string necklace which was adorned with a small silver bead. A rather thick yellow wristband rested on her left wrist while a slightly smaller purple armband resided slightly below her left shoulder. Two small bracelets resembling rubber bands were located on her opposite wrist, one yellow and one black. The girl's auburn colored hair fell almost straight down from the top of her head but did not extend very far past her chin while leaving her ears uncovered. Except for three strands running vertically down the center of her forehead in a claw-like formation, most of her hair was swept out of her face which was framed by two long bangs.

She was still laughing at Sora while she leaned forward where she stood, her hands resting on her bare knees. She had been in that particular position since she had first surprised the other teenager. Deciding that the girl had been laughing at him for quite long enough, the red and black clothed boy turned his body fully around and placed himself on his knees directly before her.

"Give me a break, Kairi," he loudly called out to his closest female friend. Physical contact was almost established between their foreheads due to how close their faces were to each other at this point in time.

To Sora's relief, the girl actually listened to his request and stopped laughing at him. However, the young islander could see that Kairi was not done making fun of him due to the teasing grin currently on her face. Straightening her posture, the redhead pulled her hands off her knees and clasped them together behind her back while she looked down at her friend. Her blue eyes gleamed with mischief and Sora barely managed to suppress a groan at the sight.

Lifting her gaze towards the sky, Kairi rather dramatically announced, "Sora, you lazy bum. I knew that I would find you snoozing down here."

The redhead tried to make her words sound like a sharp reprimand but only managed maintain the facade until she had completed the first sentence. She simply couldn't hold back her amusement after that and sounded like she was going to burst out giggling again at any moment while she spoke. For a small mercy, the shorter teen did not do so.

Despite knowing that he had been caught red-handed in the act of slacking off, the red and black clothed boy had a strong urge to defend himself against the words he took as a verbal accusation. He started rapidly waving his arms, the movement causing them to repeatedly cross and uncross in an x-shaped formation before his stomach.

"No!" he cried out, his tone abuzz with denial at his red haired friend's words. Panicking in place and unable to come up with a valid excuse for why he was done here, Sora just let his mouth run off on its own. "This huge black THING swallowed me up! I couldn't breathe! I couldn't-"

The spiky haired teen cut himself off, freezing in place with his forearms crossed before his torso while he tried to make sense of what he had just been saying to Kairi. The words he had just spoken had flown out of his mouth without any conscious thought on his part behind their utterance. Yet for some inexplicable reason Sora felt as if he had been telling the truth.

' _Huge black thing? Swallowed me up? What am I talking about?'_ the young islander asked himself, unable to figure out where that description had just come from or why it felt so right. Was he talking about the mysterious dream he had during his mid-day nap? The one he still couldn't remember properly?

Sora's confused jumble of thoughts and questions was disrupted when something connected rather harshly with the back of his head. It wasn't a particularly hard blow but it managed to force his gaze down toward Kairi's shoes and grains of sand around them. The red and black clothed boy cried out as well, though it was more out of surprise than any actual pain the sudden strike caused him to feel.

The surprise attack, which felt to Sora suspiciously like a hand coming down on his head, did manage to disrupt his newfound confusion. Forgetting what he was thinking about, the spiky haired teen rubbed the back of his head with his left hand out of habit. The majority of the appendage became obscured by his spiky brown locks as he performed the act. At the same time, he lifted his head so he could look Kairi in the face again and saw her slowly lowering her right hand back to her side.

' _She hit me,'_ he realized, silently watching as the redhead leaned forward and placed her hands back on top of her knees while she did so.

He was honestly somewhat annoyed by the sudden blow but not as much as he would have been if it had come from someone like Tidus or even Riku for that matter. Had he looked back on his past interactions with the redhead right now, Sora might have noticed that he was always more accepting of her actions and suggestions than others though it wasn't by much.

"Are you still dreaming?" Kairi asked him, her voice no longer sounding amused while she looked him in the eye. The shorter teen sounded a little exasperated instead right now.

That emotion wasn't much of a surprise for the red and black clothed boy. Kairi never quite approved of Sora's love of daytime naps and was quite vocal about it. For the redhead, every moment when the sun was out was meant to be spent either doing something productive or having fun with friends. Sleeping was meant to be done at night, not the middle of the day.

Her reprimands never went much farther than playful or exasperated rebukes so Sora didn't mind too much. To him, it was just another odd ritual between them that was a result of their friendship. However, he was still feeling unusually defensive at the moment and his heart urged him to deny the accusation Kairi had just flung at him.

"It wasn't a dream," Sora snapped back at his friend, sounding absolutely convinced of what he just said.

The spiky haired teen had pulled his left hand out of his hair before he opened his mouth and was lowering it to his sides as he spoke. He froze in place as soon as those four words had left his mouth.

' _Why did I say that?'_ the spiky haired teen silently asked himself, lowering his gaze to his knees. _'What is going on with me today?'_

It wasn't like Sora to get so defensive about his sleeping habits and a dream he couldn't even properly remember. Usually when someone called him out on his love of napping in the middle of the day, he would just wave off their words or nod along instead of barking back at them. Just what was it about the dream he had until a few moments ago that caused him to be so defensive? With how strangely he was acting, the spiky haired teen was seriously starting to wonder what he had seen and if it was a dream at all.

"Or was it? I don't know," the young islander admitted at length, his tone no longer sounding so confident anymore. Instead he sounded a little lost and confused. He also found it difficult to look Kairi in the eyes right now so he kept his gaze locked on his knees.

Since he gave up his earlier attempt to discover the truth, Sora was no closer to bringing the scattered pieces of his mysterious dream together with any sort of clarity. He had definitely been sleeping here on the beach until he woke up, or at least his body had. But if his mind had not in fact been caught in a strange dream, where had it gone to then?

"What was that place?" he spoke into the air between them, directing the words more to himself than Kairi. Why was it so difficult to remember what he saw while he slept? Feeling another headache coming on, Sora sighed heavily to himself and gave a lackluster comment in regards to his situation. "So bizarre…"

"Yeah, sure," Kairi casually spoke up, her voice sounding like she had lost all interest in their current topic of conversation. And the sound of her voice didn't appear to come from directly in front of Sora this time.

Having apparently been so lost in thought that he unintentionally forgot the redhead was still nearby, Sora started slightly in place. Lifting his head up, the spiky haired teen saw that his closest female friend was indeed no longer standing before him. Hearing the sound of soft footsteps coming from behind him, Sora twisted his head and torso so he could look over his right shoulder.

He saw that Kairi had walked past him and was currently moving closer to the water at a slow and steady pace. The auburn haired girl's hands were once again interlacing their fingers behind her back and her head was tilted back slightly, as if she was looking up at the clouds instead of observing the ocean.

Putting the matter of whatever was going on with him aside once again, Sora quickly readjust his posture so he could easily face her. His legs curled themselves into a cross legged position underneath his torso as the spiky haired teen sat down on the sands, looking towards Kairi's back and the ocean beyond her. His gloved hands came to rest on his knees while the red and black clothed boy watched his closest female friend come to a stop a short distance away from him. She stood only two steps away from where the approaching waves ceased their advance upon the sands and began their retreat toward the large body of water lurking in the opposite direction.

Softly drumming the fingers of his right hand against his knee while looking down at the sands, Sora was overcome with an almost desperate urge to break the silence now hanging between them. It felt rather awkward to the red and black clothed boy and he didn't want to just sit there staring at his dear friend. The spiky haired teen decided to bring up an old subject between the two of them. There were probably other topics he could have picked but this was the first one to pop into his head.

"Say, Kairi," Sora called out to her, looking straight at the back of her head as he did so. The redhead hummed softly where she stood, indicating that she had heard him. The sound prompted, the spiky haired teen to continue speaking. "Do you remember anything about your hometown yet? You know, where you grew up?"

This time an exasperated sigh escaped from the auburn haired teen's lips while she unclasped her hands. The blue eyed boy cringed slightly at the sound, worried he had just tripped and fallen on to a landmine.

He knew from experience that Kairi… did not always react well to that particular question.

Usually, she just took it with her customary kind smile and patient demeanor. But sometimes, Sora unintentionally picked the wrong moment to voice that particular line of inquiry. When it happened, her anger could be truly explosive. One morning she had gotten so mad at the spiky haired teen she genuinely tried to make his head explode with how loudly she was screaming at him. The noise had drawn quite a crowd, sent Sora running for the hills, and prompted a rather angry town mayor to march over to his house and demand to know what he had said to Kairi later that same day.

The whole day had been a very unpleasant experience for the young islander and his memory of it was locked deep inside his subconscious, with the spiky haired teen having no intention of ever setting it free. The red and black clothed boy had also stayed as far away from Kairi as he could for well over two weeks following the incident, wanting to avoid setting her off again while fearing that incident was the end of their friendship. It wasn't until Kairi had sought him out herself and apologized for overreacting that the two of them had started hanging out with each other again.

"I've told you before, Sora," was Kairi's verbal response to his question. It was impossible for him to tell by her tone if she was angry with him for asking the question today. She didn't bother turning around to look at him while she spoke so the blue eyed boy thought that the redhead was at least annoyed with him right now. "I don't remember anything. Not a single thing."

The extra emphasis she put on those last four words caused Sora to cringe where he sat again. Like Sora, Kairi was not born on the Destiny Islands.

She also had just washed up on the shore one day, her arrival taking place almost two years behind Sora's own. Much like the story between Sora and his adoptive mother, the current mayor of Destiny Islands had been walking along the beach and found her lying face down in the sands. When it became clear that no one around town recognized her either, the mayor took Kairi in and raised her as his own daughter by himself, with some help from his sister and her husband. And just like Sora, no one had ever come to the islands looking for her.

There had been only one real difference between her arrival and Sora's own. For most of the day before Sora was found by his adoptive mother, an unusually fierce storm had harassed the Destiny Islands. In contrast, a beautiful meteor shower had taken place in the sky over the course of the night preceding the mayor's discovery of Kairi. The various differences between the two events were obvious.

Sighing heavily, Sora turned his head away and looked towards the smallest of the two play islands. He resisted the urge to scratch the back of his head with his right hand out of embarrassment and simply played around with his crown pendant instead.

"Yeah, I kind of figured that. Sorry for bringing it up again," said the spiky haired teen, sounding genuinely apologetic.

It was almost funny how much the two friends actually had in common. Neither of them were born on the Destiny Islands and had merely shown up one morning. And neither of them recalled anything about their pasts before they came to Destiny Islands. What their respective home town was like, who their biological parents had been, if they had siblings or not. It was all an utterly blank empty slate, one that had been thoroughly wiped clean when they came to the Destiny Islands.

Though, unlike Sora, Kairi was lucky enough to still possess one thing from her past life. Two things if you include the small necklace she was currently wearing, an accessory that had been on her person when the mayor found her lying on the beach. The redhead still knew and possessed her original name.

That she had been called Kairi was the only thing the girl ever managed to recall of her old life. Who gave her that name, whether it was her biological parents or someone else, remained a mystery to this day. When they had been younger, and their friendship in its early infancy stages, a small part of Sora had actually been rather jealous that Kairi had managed to retain some small part of who she used to be. The spiky haired teen had long since grown out of it though.

"What about you, Sora?" Kairi called out after a moment of silence between the pair. Turning his head to look at her out of the corner of his right eye, Sora saw that she was also looking at him with one eye peering over her left shoulder. "Do you remember anything from your hometown?"

Sora snorted loudly where he sat at the question and closed his blue eyes, silently grateful she wasn't still upset with him. Throwing his hands up in the air while shrugging his shoulders in a dramatic fashion, the spiky haired teen casually said, "Nope. Still gone. Every single thing."

"I see…" Kairi trialed off, turning back to look across the ocean's shimmering surface. Meanwhile, Sora lowered his hands back to his knees and stared at the back of her head.

Asking each other these questions used to be a weekly ritual between the pair, in spite of the times both of them had lost their tempers when they were asked if any part of their memory had come back. Sora had been the one to start it. After being told about Kairi's existence by Riku, the knowledge that she was not born on Destiny Islands was what caused Sora to reach out to her when they were younger.

When he first met Kairi, the spiky haired teen didn't know at the time that she had also lost her memory. He had just been so happy to meet someone who else that wasn't born on the Destiny Islands at the time. The spiky haired teen had also been hoping that she was someone from his old life and therefore a potential source of information about his biological family, as well as the town or world he had come from. Learning Kairi also had amnesia the first time they met one another had been quite the disappointing revelation for the brown haired boy.

Perhaps he was being dramatic now, but whenever Sora looked back on that moment now, the spiky haired teen felt like that conversation almost ended their friendship before it had a chance to truly start. He had been rather reluctant to speak to Kairi after he learned about her loss of memory though he hadn't directly avoided her either. Then again, he did not talk too much to all the girls on Destiny Islands back then, preferring to hang out with Riku and the others boys closer to his own age.

But the fact that they were both unexpected newcomers to the island had caused ultimately caused Sora and Kairi to gravitate towards each other. The redhead especially would constantly seek Sora out after their first meeting, apparently finding him interesting while being unaware of the mixed feelings her presence invoked in him at the time. As they got older, that feeling quickly went away and Sora came to truly enjoy spending time together with her.

While a small child, however, Sora had still been rather curious about where he had come from and the possibility that Kairi was from the same place he was. At least once a week he would ask her if she remembered anything about her past but the brown haired boy always got the same answer. Eventually, roughly a year or so since she first arrived, Kairi gained the courage to start asking him that same question in turn but his answer was always the same as well.

As they grew up and got more comfortable with life on Destiny Islands, their interest in their forgotten pasts waned significantly. Now, they usually asked each other if they remembered anything only once per month with Sora posing the question more often than Kairi. But the desire to know where they had come from never went away completely. It had, after all, been what inspired the two of them to agree with Riku when he first proposed their secret construction project.

"…Do you ever want to go back," Kairi suddenly asked out of the blue, still standing with her back turned to him while she spoke. Her question startled Sora at first but an easy smile soon blossomed on his face.

"Would it be so bad to go and have a visit? What's the worst that could happen?" Sora casually asked her in return. As he spoke, he pressed his right elbow against his right knee and let his head fall in to his upraised hand. It caused his vision to slant slightly but he didn't care.

His words prompted a small round of soft giggles to burst from Kairi's lips. When she was done, she cheerfully said, "No, I suppose not."

An easy silence stretched between them now and Sora quietly stared past her to look out over the ocean with a smile on his face. Kairi was the one who broke the silence between them this time, though she still refrained from turning around to face Sora directly.

"My hometown… I wouldn't mind being able to see it too," the redhead told him, sounding a little earnest as she spoke. Her words brought a chuckle to Sora's mouth as pushed his head back into a more proper position on his shoulders, his palm sliding down his face slightly to press against the base of his chin.

"I'd like to see it too," the spiky haired boy told her, the excitement in his voice growing with every word. Looking past Kairi's position, he unconsciously turned his left hand into a fist while he gazed at the ocean's seemingly endless expanse. "But I'm not just going to stop there or my hometown. There are probably more places, more worlds, out there waiting for us to find them. I want to see them all."

His excitement must have been infectious because Kairi finally turned back to look at him, a wide grin on her face. "So what are we waiting for?" the redhead asked her childhood friend, sounding just as excited as he did.

The girl opened her mouth to say something else but she never got the chance to speak up again. Someone else cut her off by loudly yelling, "Hey!"

Slightly startled by the new voice, which he identified as male and coming from somewhere behind him, Sora detached his right hand from his shoulder. It took him another moment to realize he knew who that voice belonged to.

Rolling his eyes at how the other teen had announced his presence, the red and black clothed boy twisted his head and shoulders to the right slightly in order to look at the newcomer. Kairi was already greeting them with a warm smile as she looked past Sora.

The intruder, a young man roughly a year older than Sora, was standing a short distance away from them while carrying a large wooden log under his right arm. The mere sight of that object caused the muscles in Sora's arms to spasm with a brief phantom pain. He pushed it aside and focused on the newcomer's grinning face, feeling his own lips stretch into a smile at the sight of this person.

The other boy looked at the pair of them with a smirk on his face and loudly said, "Aren't you forgetting about me?"

"Riku," Sora and Kairi responded together. Both of them were smiling as they greeted their friend. Sora wondered how long he had been standing there but didn't bother to comment on it.

Being older than either of them, Riku was slightly taller than Sora in height but the upraised spikes of the brunette's hair would still reached the top of his head if they stood side by side. The older teen was also in possession of a slightly more muscular build as well when compared to the red and black clothed boy. Despite the all the time he spent under the sun, Riku had surprisingly pale skin. While an unusual skin tone for a resident of the Destiny Islands, it meshed well with his silver hair and green eyes, the latter of which possessed a soft blue tint to their coloring.

Of the three of them, Riku had the longest hair and it seemed to be a blend of the styles used by Sora and Kairi. While the hair on top of his head was smoothed out, the rest of it fell down around his face in a manner that caused it to resemble a series of spikes that were vertically pointing towards the ground while they circled his head. The hair strands in front of his face were the shortest and only covered his forehead, partially obscuring his silver eyebrows. The strands of hair on the back of his head were the longest, reaching all the way down to his shoulders. Like Kairi, he had two bangs framing the sides of his face.

For clothing, Riku wore a sleeveless vest with a rising collar that resembled a small scarf and shielded much of his neck from view. The back and sides of the vest were black in color while the collar and front of the vest were yellow instead. Thin white lines divided the black from the yellow with one more running up the middle of his shirt's front. A final white line acted as an outline for the bottom of his shirt. Two black straps with white trim on the edges and pointy ends were pulled over his shoulders. They crossed over each other in an X-shaped formation on Riku's chest and upper back, a white stud on each end nailing them in place.

Riku's legs were encased by dark purple pants and he had a black belt wrapped around his waist, a silver rectangular buckle fastening it in place. The pants were mostly covered up by the large blue wading pants he was currently wearing overtop of them. Reaching up to just slightly past his knees, the wading pants were held up by four long straps hanging from his belt, these straps having an identical design and color scheme to those on his vest. There were two straps per leg, one in front and one in back. Small black belts with square shaped silver buckles were also wrapped around Riku's ankles, tightening the lower ends of the wading pants.

His feet were encased in multi-collared shoes. They were blue on the top and front, black on the back and bottom, and white on the sides with string-like x-shaped orange markings overtop. Instead of laces, the shoes possessed two black straps that were white on their edges and grey on their undersides.

Of the three friends, Riku had the least amount of accessories on his person. If he was wearing any sort of necklace, it was hidden by the raised collar of his vest. A thin cloth-like bracelet rested on each of his forearms, positioned slightly above his wrists. He also wore gloves on his hands but they were of a different style from Sora's. Completely covering Riku's thumb and fingers, the black gloves extended only slightly past the base of his thumbs, leaving about a third of his hands exposed to the elements. The end of each glove possessed a rather thick grey outline.

"So," The silver haired teen continued speaking, his tone completely casual while he slowly shook his head from side to side. Stopping the motion, he looked back at them with an amused gleam still present in his eyes and said, "I guess I am the only one working on the raft."

As it emphasis his point, Riku raised his left hand slightly while he spoke and pointed his thumb behind him, roughly in the raft's general direction. He even twisted his head slightly to the side to look over his shoulder when he was done speaking.

"Sorry about that," Sora called out, not really sounding apologetic while he raised his right hand into the air to wave at slightly at his best friend. Riku just ignored the spiky haired teen and marched over to him and Kairi.

Moving past Sora, the silver haired teen didn't even glance at the brunette while he casually threw the log he was carrying at the other boy. Caught off guard by the action, Sora cried out and scrambled to catch the log before it slammed into him. He didn't bother to try pulling himself to his feet to try jumping out of the way, instinctively knowing there wasn't enough time to do that.

Despite the red and black clothed boy rather frantically waving his arms above his body, he wasn't able to take hold of the thing in time. The log slammed into his torso and its weight forced Sora to lie down on his back once again, this time against his will. He groaned slightly from the impact. An even louder groan emerged from the young islander when he realized that his hair, no longer protected by his hood, made contact with the warm grains of sand.

' _Oh, I am going to get you for this later,'_ Sora thought to himself, certain Riku did it on purpose. He hated the feel of sand in his hair and was going to need a shower to get rid of them later. _'Just you wait, Riku.'_

Heedless of the brown haired boy's thoughts, the silver haired teen continued on his way and marched right up to Kairi. He stopped when he was only a footstep away from her and looked her straight in the eyes. Curling his hands into fists, Riku placed them against his hips and leaned forward slightly before speaking up.

"And you're just as lazy as he is," the oldest member of the trio told the redhead. Despite his words, Riku's tone didn't sound very accusing. Instead, it sounded like he was simply teasing the redhead.

After giggling softly while rubbing the back of her head with her left hand for a short time, all Kairi could say in response was, "So you noticed."

Sora would have commented on what the two of them were talking about if he wasn't too busy shoving the log Riku had thrown at him off his body. Pulling himself into a sitting position, he turned his head to the right just into to watch Riku sit down beside him. The silver haired teen had placed himself directly between Kairi and Sora while the log rested on the other side of the red and black clothed boy.

Despite how Riku had dumped a log on him mere moments ago and his own thoughts of revenge for the act, Sora didn't hesitate in raising his right hand in a silent request for a high five. Smirking slightly, Riku acknowledge the act and slapped his left hand against the appendage. The two pulled their gloved hands away as soon as they made contact and placed them against their respective knees.

Watching all this with a small pout on her face, and possibly thinking the two of them were ignoring her, Kairi decided to take charge of the trio. She clapped her hands several times in front of her face to get the attention of her two friends. It worked as both boys turned their heads to regard her. Sora had a slightly confused look on his face and was likely wondering what she wanted now while Riku's expression was perfectly neutral, hiding whatever he was thinking.

"Okay, we'll finish it together. Come on, let's go," the auburn haired girl loudly announced, sounding full of energy as she spoke and threw her hands out to her sides.

Neither of them verbally responded to her sudden declaration. Sora just gave the redhead an unamused stare while Riku's left eyebrow climbed up his forehead slightly. Both their expressions indicated that they were silently wondering if Kairi honestly thought there was any other way their shared construction project was going to come to a close. The two of them were not _that_ lazy. They did have a dream they wanted to achieve after all and finishing the raft was a part of it.

Having apparently expected such a reaction from the pair, the redhead knew just what to say to sweeten the deal and get them moving. Leaning forward slightly while pointing her right forefinger at the two boys in a challenging manner, she said, "I'll race you!"

Sora jerked slightly where he sat on the sands, a confused sound leaving his mouth at her suggestion. His face looked rather perplexed as well. In all the years he had known the other teen, Kairi rarely participated in any sort of competition. While she did prefer to spend her free time doing outdoor activities, she was not a naturally competitive person like most of the other kids living on the Destiny Islands. Usually, when she did take took part, she simply acted as the referee instead of an active contestant so it was slightly odd for the red and black clothed boy to hear such a proposition from the auburn haired girl.

Riku appeared to be in a similar state of mind about this, shaking his head slightly from side to side as soon as the words left Kairi's mouth. While waving his left hand slightly in place while it rested against his upraised left knee, the silver haired boy asked her, "What? Are you kidding?"

He sounded a little exasperated and not at all interested in her suggestion right now. Kairi didn't seem to care about either of their reactions because she giggled to herself right then, shoulders shaking slightly from the force of her mirth. The two boys only sat and watched her until she regained control of herself in silence, sharing a bored glance between themselves at one point while they waited. Once her giggling subsided, the redhead pulled herself to her full height and started raising her hands toward her face.

' _I don't think she's kidding,'_ Sora thought to himself, silently answering Riku's question himself while watching Kairi with a one slightly upraised eyebrow. He seemed unaware that his hands were curling into fists where they rested on his legs.

While the red and black clothed boy still doubted that Kairi would be much of a challenge for him, the thought of racing with Riku again was causing him to feel a steady rise in both anticipation and excitement within his chest. The silver haired teen always provided Sora with a good challenge when they competed against each other, regardless of what sort of competition they were having at the time. Besides, the brown eyed boy still had to even the score between them after all.

Quickly turning his head slightly to the left revealed to Sora that Riku was watching their auburn haired friend, a completely blank expression on his face while doing so. It was very difficult for the spiky haired teen to tell what the other boy was thinking when he looked like that these days. And the brown haired boy knew that caused the slightly older islander to feel a great deal of amusement. The silver haired teen had been more than willing to use that look to repeatedly lure Sora into all sorts of verbal traps and teasing implications over the past few years.

Apparently sensing the shorter boy's gaze was now focused on him, Riku turned his head slightly to his right and the two boys made eye contact. Locking gazes with the other boy seemed to trigger something within Sora because the urge to get up and run become almost impossible for him to suppress.

The young islander's bare toes curled slightly in the sands as he waited for Kairi's signal. His impatient grew slightly when he saw the faintest of smirks appear on Riku's face, an obvious act of provocation. Any thoughts that Riku wasn't going to get up and run when Kairi told them to flew out of his mind at the sight of that expression. The spiky haired teen vowed not to lose this time.

Fortunately for his patience, the auburn haired girl didn't leave Sora waiting for much longer.

"Ready!" Kairi started, still lifting her hands to her face while she said the word. Once she was holding the appendages in front of her face, positioning them slightly on either side of her mouth, she increased the volume of her voice and yelled, "Go!"

Sora and Riku took off almost immediately, throwing themselves off the sands at the exact same time. The spiky haired teen used both hands to launch himself out of his sitting position while his best friend did that with his right hand alone. The red and black clothed boy just caught a burst of laughter erupting from Kairi as he and Riku landed on their feet and started running across the beach.

As he ran, a quick glance to his right showed Sora that he and Riku were tied for first place right now. Their footsteps were almost in perfect sync as they moved over the warm grains of sand. The red and black clothed boy saw the silver haired teen looking at him with a wild grin on his face and he unconsciously started smiling back. Behind them, he could hear Kairi's laughter growing fainter and fainter. She was either regaining control of herself again or falling further and further behind the two boys.

Knowing that he would slow down if he looked back to see what was going on with her, Sora turned his head forward in order to see where he was going. The odds of him running into or tripping on anything here were minimal but it was better to be safe than sorry. Such an event might cost him the race after all.

Without looking at the older boy, he asked Riku, "So how far do you want to take this?"

A loud snort erupted from Riku's mouth as he ran beside the spiky haired teen. A moment later, the older boy simply said, "The usual seems good."

' _Figured that was the case,'_ Sora thought to himself, nodding in agreement at Riku's idea. He saw the silver haired teen start to speed up slightly when he was finished moving his head, the shift in pace causing the older islander to start pulling ahead of the red and black clothed boy. _'Oh no, you don't,'_ Sora privately thought to himself at the sight.

Picking up his own pace, Sora struggled to catch up to the taller boy's slightly longer strides. He barely noticed when they started to pass under the wooden bridge connecting the two play islands. He did however see when Riku started to pull himself to his left, an action that almost caused him to place himself directly in front of Sora. Knowing that wasn't the older boy's intention, the spiky haired teen started to pull himself to the left as well while as they passed the flat bridge.

They were coming to the end of the semi-oval shaped beach after all and needed to turn slightly to reach their makeshift finish line, which was now coming into view. The end point of their race consisted of a rather large wall composed of flat rectangular shaped wooden plants. Not directly attached to the beach, it stood on a small outcropping of solid land that rose slightly above the sands. A small windowless wooden door was located in the center of the wall's base, the doorway big enough for the three teens to pass through one by one when it was open. Sora and Kairi could probably walk through it together but space might be a little tight.

Aside from taking their boats and rowing around the two play islands, this door was the only way to reach the larger island's northern side. There wasn't really as much open space on that portion of the island so no one really went there. The beach there was much smaller than this one and filled with tall palm trees, making it a difficult place to run in. Because the other kids rarely went there, it was the perfect place to build and store their raft.

Ignoring the small plank placed to help people walk up to the raised ground, Sora and Riku merely leaped the small distance. Seeing Riku land slightly in front of him, the spiky haired teen became even more determined to reach the wall first. The red and black clothed boy tried to increase speed while running over the short distance remaining between him and the end goal. The blue eyed boy reached for the wooden wall with his left hand and saw Riku doing the same with his right out of the corner of his eye as he came to run shoulder to shoulder with the other teenager.

His own forward momentum proved a problem for Sora. The moment his fingers made contact with the wood, he tried and failed to stop his body from continuing on its present course. He slammed hard against the section of the wall directly to the left of the door, just barely managing to turn his head to the side and keep his nose from getting squashed between his skull and the construct. The wooden structure's form was unyielding and Sora was knocked off his feet upon colliding with it, thrown onto his butt by invisible hands.

Fortunately, the impact only slightly dazed the spiky haired teen rather than seriously injure him. Shaking his head from side to side as he sat on the hard gravel, Sora heard Riku laughing loudly nearby. Turning his head, he saw that the older boy had not suffered the same fate and was standing just before the wooden door with his right side turned towards the structure and his right hand placed against it.

Scowling slightly, Sora pushed himself to his feet and said, "It's not that funny, Riku."

The silver haired teen stopped laughing and raised his head to look at Sora. The red and black clothed boy's left eyebrow twitched slightly when he saw the teasing smirk on the other boy's face. Pulling his hand away from the door, Riku said, "I thought it was."

Before Sora could come up with any sort of response to that statement, Kairi caught up to them. Forgoing the jump, she took advantage of the plank instead and ran up its length. She came to rest a few steps away from the two boys, the three of them forming a small triangle formation while she doubled over slightly and placed her hands on top of her bare knees.

She was huffing and puffing as she stood there, clearly out of breath. Riku and Sora shared a concerned look between themselves but chose not to say anything as they waited for their friend to recover. She didn't keep them waiting too long and soon lifted her head to look at them.

"Okay… that is the last time I challenge either of you to a race," she announced, sounding like she was still a little winded from the short run.

Riku just shrugged his shoulders while holding his hands slightly out to his sides. Sora just scratched the back of his head with his left hand and gazed out over the ocean, not looking at either of his friends. Neither of them were really surprised she hadn't been able to keep up but Sora wasn't sure it was a good idea to apologize for leaving her in the dust like that. This race had been her idea after all. Riku could have been thinking similar thoughts for he remained silent as well.

Pulling herself back to her full height a moment later, Kairi dragged the brown haired boy's attention back to her when she asked, "So… who won?"

"I did," both Riku and Sora called out, answering the question at the same time. Sora sounded quite insistent when he spoke the words while Riku's tone was extremely casual.

Jerking slightly in place, Sora sharply turned his head around to look the silver haired teen in the eyes. He was glaring slightly at his friend who looked back at him with a nonchalant gaze. The look on the older boy's face just made the spiky haired teen glare a little harder and curl his hands into fists at his sides.

"I touched the wall first," Sora insisted, speaking directly to the silver haired teen this time and ignoring Kairi completely while he did so. Riku merely smirked at the red and black clothed boy and crossed his arms over his chest.

"You sure you didn't hit your head too hard just now," the silver haired boy shot back, a teasing tone to his voice. His voice perfectly matched the expression on his face. "It can make you imagine all sorts of things, after all."

"I'm fine," Sora interject rather shortly, taking a determined step forward to enforce his claim. He was determined to ignore the slight pain he felt in both his forehead and rear end.

Riku just continued to smirk at him while standing with arms crossed, not the least bit intimidated by the gesture. If Sora was being honest himself, his annoyance grew slightly at the sight of that. Looking back on this moment, he would find himself believing that the other boy had done it on purpose. He seemed to enjoy riling Sora up these days for some reason though he never took it too far. That did not mean he didn't come close a few times.

Watching the two of them, Kairi sighed heavily and said "Come on you two, are you seriously going to do this now?"

Neither Sora nor Riku gave any indication that they had heard what the redhead just said to them. They simply continued to stare each other in the face causing Kairi to shake her head from side to side in disbelief. She pinched the space between her eyebrows with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, possibly trying to stave of headache.

Riku was the one who broke the silence that had descended upon the trio a moment later. Still looking like Sora wasn't making him feel the slightest bit intimidated, he uncrossed his arms and placed them on his hips. As he did so, he smirked at the other boy and said, "You know there is an easy way to settle this, right?"

"The usual?" Sora asked him, understanding what the silver haired teen was implying. The spiky haired teen couldn't say that such a prospect was unappealing to him right now.

"The usual," Riku verbally affirmed, sounding very confident in his chances. Inside the safety of his own mind, Sora vowed to wipe that smirk off the older boy's face this time.

"Let's do-" Sora started to say only to get interrupted by an exasperated Kairi.

"If you are going to fight at least save it for after we're done building the raft. We're never going to get it done at this rate!"

* * *

 **And cut. That's a wrap.**

 **As I said in my inital notes, this was more of an interlude chapter created to introduce Riku and Kairi. I like to think I did a good job of getting their personalities and how their relationship worked with Sora. I am aware I kind of pushed Riku to the sidelines here but I think I dropped some hints about him and his personality in previous chapters too.**

 **Some people might think Kairi is being a little OC during this story, especially with the idea that she has a violent temper. That part is only for under extreme circumstances as I am sick and tired of her perfect little girl act. I will admit that I liked her a lot when Kingdom Hearts first came out but over the years I have just grown to dislike her a lot. She is currently my least favorite character of the entire Kingdom Hearts franchise with Aqua, Larxene, and Xion taking the places of my top three female characters from first to third respectively. It just feels like Tetsuya Nomura keeps trying to give me new reasons to like her less and less with every new installment, starting from Kingdom Hearts 2. These reason include the changes made to her character design and even her actions on screen. Nothing really struck me as something I liked lately.**

 **There is even a specific scene in Kingdom Hearts 3 that made me shake my head at Kairi and call her selfish in my head when I first saw it. I wont go into specifics to avoid creating spoilers for people who haven't gotten that far in the game yet but for those who know it, this scene takes place on Destiny Islands before the final battle. The way she handled that was just... it felt too much like she was bossing Sora around and telling him to do what she wanted him to do solely because she wanted him to do it. Maybe I am being too cynical but that scene just did not feel romantic to me.**

 **Because I can't shake these emotions, this series will not be SoKai. The whole pairing was nice at first but in canon we never received any reason why the two of them liked each other. We are just told that they do. We don't even actually know what caused them to become friends in the first place just that they both spent their childhood together on the Destiny Islands. Similarly, it's the same thing with Sora and Riku. I would like to say I gave a good catalyst for why Sora and Kairi became friends in my story written out in this chapter and I might make this story seem SoKai but again that is not the endgame for this series.**

 **Frankly I have no idea what the endgame pairing for Sora is at this point as there are so many female characters to choose from. I will admit that I am leaning towards Azura from Fire Emblem Fates or Aqua from Kingdom Hearts but as I am taking a largely make this up as I go writing style Sora might still end up with somebody else. I might even include a girl from the Final Fantasy series as I will be bringing in more of them - guys too - than there were in canon later. If anyone has an idea about who I should pick, feel free to give me a suggestion in a review and include a reason why. I promise to take it under consideration.**

 **That's enough for now. On an unrelated note, I managed to get the stuff I needed to forge Ultima Weapon in Kingdom Hearts 3 - my first ever Ultimate Weapon from the Kingdom Hearts series - and finished the game last Tuesday. Gotta admit while I loved the gameplay and the boss battles especially... I am not impressed with the story. It had a wonderful start but the further along we went the more it started to resemble a rushed job. The world arcs were fine but the main story suffered a lot after clearing world number 8. A lot of cut scenes felt like they were cut out of the final game and many characters kept getting pushed to the side. A certain Nobody who dual wields a specific type of weapon only got to speak for real in one cutscene. And the guy who dislikes to fight just disappeared after his third cutscene. Being one of my favorite characters I would like to know what happened to him. Overall, Kingdom Hearts 3 is shaping up to be the next Final Fantasy XV in my opinion. Maybe I will have a better opinion of it during my second playthrough. Hopefully Square Enix can fix some of the damage they caused with upcoming DLCs and later installments of the game.**

 **Speaking of later installments... NOMURA! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! FIRST YOU KEEP US WAITING FOR THIS GAME FOR OVER A DECADE AND THEN YOU END KH3 ON SUCH A HORRIFYING CLIFFHANGER?! MAY YOU BURN IN HELL FOR YOUR SINS AGAINST ALL LOYAL FANS OF THE KINGDOM HEARTS SERIES!**

 **...**

 **...**

 **...**

 **... God, I have been needing to get that off my chest for a while now. I will blame that temporary loss of composure on the fact that it is nearly midnight over here and I am feeling rather sleep-deprived at the moment. So on that note, I am heading to bed. See you all next chapter.**


	6. Chapter 05

**Hello folks, welcome back to Kingdom Hearts: Awakened Fate**

 **First of all, I would like to thank Golden Zero16 for his review over the last chapter. I agree that I did take things too far with my comments about Nomura and Kairi, especially the former, and I am sorry for that. It was late, I had a bit of a rough day, and I guess I just needed to let vent a little and I ended up directing my frustrations at someone who has done nothing to deserve it. Despite my thoughts about the ending of KH3, Nomura still made a wonderful game and it has fast become one of my favorites in the franchise. He is a brilliant inventor for fictional video games and I look forward to seeing what else he has in store for us in the years to come.**

 **In regards to Kairi, now that I have calmed down, I can admit that my emotions towards her are more apathy at this point in time rather than actual dislike. Due to how often she gets shoved to the side in the franchise, she simply hasn't been given the chance to stand out and give me an actual reason to like her. I also found that cutscene I was talking about at the end of last chapter online and, after watching it again, I agree I was too harsh on her actions Golden Zero16. Rather than her seeming like a bully, the emotional theme the developers were going for simply fell flat for me during that cutscene.**

 **Now, Banjofan, I wouldn't say they did the exact same story with Kairi as they did in other games. They simply, like a lot of other characters, shoved her to the side and focused on Sora, giving her a rather minimal and ineffective role in the plot overall to my eyes. An unfortunate occurrence when a game simply has too many important characters. And, honestly, given how little she seemed to actually do in KH3, the developers could have simply left her on the islands like in Chain of Memories and it wouldn't have changed anything if they stuck to their current plot in my mind.**

 **As for your question about the characters from fire emblem... your guess is so very close but I am going to leave you hanging simply because I am evil :)**

 **Moving on, we've got ourselves my longest chapter yet and it's another interlude by overall design. I did put in some action here though and at the rate I am going I might actually keep my promise and reach Traverse Town around chapter 10. Yay! I have so many idea I want to write down in order to try and shake things up.**

 **Speaking of which, does anyone want my to include some new worlds in this particular story? I have only one new world in mind right now but I am willing to take suggestions for up to two more. Recommendations are welcome but Disney worlds only please and not one we have seen so far in the series. No Marvel or Stars War allowed, sorry. Also, I will only bring in these original worlds if my reviewers want me too. Keep in mind this is further down the line right now and the one I am thinking of adding in will not happen until Sora has cleared Wonderland at the earliest.**

 **And with that out of the way, welcome to Chapter 5 of my first fanfiction story.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the any characters or other creations that are apart of the Final Fantasy franchise, the Kingdom Hearts franchise, the Disney Franchise, or the Fire Emblem franchise. This story was created solely for the express purpose of providing entertainment for fun and the chance to improve my abilities as a writer.**

* * *

Kingdom Hearts – Awakened Fate

Chapter 05 – Desires, Thoughts, Legends, and Screams

 **Later That Day,**

 **The Destiny Islands, Early Evening**

From where he stood on top of the smaller play island, Sora practically bellowed a wordless cry as he launched himself at Riku. The spiky haired teen intended to hit the older boy on the shoulder with the wooden sword he was currently holding with both hands. Having positioned the weapon over and slightly behind his own right shoulder before he attacked, Sora swung it in a two-handed downwards swing. Rather than a sharp dive however, the wooden sword's descent followed a slightly vertical line as it moved towards Riku's left shoulder.

In spite of all the effort the brown haired boy had put into the strike however, it ended in failure.

With what could only be called a mocking smirk locked onto his face, Sora's opponent simply raised his copy of that same wooden sword and held it in front of his shoulder. Instead of holding it in a perfectly horizontal line, the weapon's tip was tilted slightly towards the evening sky while Riku gripped the hilt with his right hand alone. Despite Sora using both arms during his attack, the silver haired teen blocked his best friend's latest strike without any noticeable sign of effort on his part. His slightly longer and more muscular arm barely seemed to twitch while the two wooden objects slammed against each other.

It remained that way while the two wooden swords proceeded to grind against each other while stuck between the dueling teens. This small struggle was caused by Sora, who was trying and failing to overpower his friend while he pushed forward with all his might. His efforts were fruitless so far and that seemed to amuse Riku because the silver haired teen's smirk widened slightly while he looked into Sora's frustrated blue eyes.

The brown haired boy could not stop himself from feeling irritated when his opponent actually had the audacity to laugh in his face a moment later. It lasted for a very short length of time and it was a very soft sounding chuckle at that. Still, the sudden noise brought a small scowl to the spiky haired teen's face. With how frustrated he was feeling right now, Sora could not help but think the older boy was mocking his efforts. The notion only made the red and black clothed boy more determined to win this match.

He did not for a second consider the possibility that the silver haired teen was simply enjoying the fight. Or rather, enjoying the painful beating he had been giving the red and black clothed boy since this match began. A beating that Sora was quite determined to repay in kind.

Deciding he wasn't going to be able to overpower Riku after all right now, the spiky haired teen quickly stepped back with his left foot. As he did so, Sora disconnected the two wooden swords and pulled the one he was holding over his left shoulder in preparation for another swing. Stepping forward again with his left foot while he did so, the spiky haired teen tried to hit Riku on his right shoulder this time. The other boy simply made a horizontal slashing motion with his right arm and knocked the blow aside with the blunt edge of his makeshift weapon's so-called blade.

Undeterred, Sora pulled his toy sword back towards himself as quickly as he could manage. He crouched down slightly while holding the makeshift weapon slightly to the right of his stomach, both his hands almost pulled completely past his torso. Just as quickly as he pulled himself into that position, Sora stabbed his arms forward and attempted to drive the tip of his weapon into Riku's stomach.

The silver haired teen wasn't able to react fast enough to block Sora's attack this time. With wide eyes he could only watch as the wooden object slammed into his abdominal region, the impact occurring slightly above where his belly button should be located.

' _All right,'_ the red and black clothed boy thought to himself once the hit landed. He could not help but grin slightly when he heard Riku let out a small grunt upon being struck. Before Sora's blue eyes, the older boy's upper body bent forward slightly.

Once again stepping back with his left foot, Sora pulled his weapon away from Riku's gut and raised it over his head with both hands. Not waiting for his opponent to recover, the spiky haired teen let loose another cry and swung the weapon down towards his opponent's head. He struck Riku on the right shoulder and he struck hard enough to make the silver haired teen let loose another grunt. Stepping back slightly with his right foot, Riku's head fell slightly further towards the ground.

After quickly letting go of his toy sword with his left hand, Sora swung the makeshift upwards with his right hand and attempted to strike the other boy in the chin. Riku, however, managed to recover his wits in time and he leaned back while pulling himself up to his full height. Sora could only scowl slightly as the tip of his makeshift weapon harmlessly cut through the air directly in front of the taller boy's neck.

Lifting up his left arm as he watched Riku straighten himself, Sora once again grasped his wooden sword with both hands and swung it towards his opponent's chest. The silver haired teen merely leaned forward slightly while holding his copy of the toy sword in front of his chest. He blocked the strike and his arm barely twitched as he did so. Exhaling loudly with through his nose, Sora took a step forward in order to try and force his way past the older boy's guard. It didn't work.

Caught in another deadlock, the two makeshift weapons grinded against each other once more while their wielders looked each other in the eye. Two determined blue eyes were now locked in a silent stare down with a pair of emerald eyeballs. The later pair started to emanate faint amusement while another smirk appeared on Riku's face.

The sight of that expression caused Sora to grit his teeth slightly before letting loose a soft growl. Taking a step back, he broke the deadlock by pulling his wooden sword away from Riku's in order to prepare for another strike. Before he got the chance to launch another blow, Riku lashed out with another horizontal swipe and the tip of his toy sword harshly connected with Sora's left forearm for a moment.

Grunting due to a mixture of surprise and pain, Sora took another step back and lowered his gaze by accident. Lifting up his head a moment later, the spiky haired teen saw Riku take a single step towards him while pointing his makeshift weapon to the sky. Realizing the other boy was about to attack again, Sora swung his own weapon upwards with both hands holding the wooden hilt. The red and black clothed boy just managed to strike the blunt edge of Riku's toy sword while it was descending towards his shoulder, diverting the attack slightly off course and causing it to fly harmlessly past the left side of his body.

Taking advantage of the opening created by Riku's now outstretched arm, Sora launched a two-handed horizontal swing of his own. His weapon struck a solid blow on his opponent's chest and Riku instinctively took a step back while he grunted in pain. He crouched down slightly while Sora pulled his makeshift weapon past his right shoulder, the red and black clothed boy preparing to launch another strike as he did so.

Just before the spiky haired teen could launch his next swing however, Riku leaped backwards. Sora's wooden sword swung through nothing but empty air as he watched the older boy land a slight distance away from him. It would take the spiky haired teen roughly three to four steps to reach the taller islander's new location.

Lifting his head slightly in order to look Sora in the eyes, the silver haired teen called out to the younger boy. All he said was, "My turn."

Narrowing his eyes, Sora attempted to hold his wooden sword in front of him and block whatever attack was coming his way. He wasn't quite fast enough as Riku proceeded to leap towards him while spinning his body in mid-air. Having enough time to complete only a single clockwise rotation, Riku landed on his feet directly before the other boy and moved his sword between them with a vertical backhanded swing. Sora's own sword was still too far to the left side of his body to be of any use, so the makeshift weapon landed hard against his right arm.

Crying out in pain, Sora instinctively took a step back with his right foot. Letting go of his toy sword with his left hand, he brought the appendage up to cover the area where he had been struck.

Stepping forward, Riku attempted to press his advantage with another downwards chop of his wooden sword. Using his right arm, Sora raised his sword and horizontally above his head in order to block the blow. The two makeshift weapons made contact and, while Sora managed to stop Riku's strike, the strength behind it forced his right arm to fall towards the ground. Seizing the opportunity, the older boy quickly pulled his right hand close to his chest and then performed another backhanded swing with his sword. The blunt edge of the makeshift weapon landed hard on Sora's chest and disrupted his balance to the point that he was forced to take three quick steps back to avoid falling on his rear.

' _Not again,'_ the spiky haired teen thought to himself, pulling his left hand away from his right arm. He couldn't believe his opponent had managed to once again take back the momentum of this fight.

Taking a hold of his weapon with both hands once more, Sora lifted his head and looked up at Riku. To his annoyance, Riku was looking back at him with a completely nonchalant expression on his face. He was even tapping the blunt edge of his toy sword against his right shoulder while his left hand was pressed against his hip.

Smirking slightly, the older boy once again called out to Sora and said, "You have enough yet, Sora? Or do you still want some more?"

Narrowing his eyes, Sora didn't even bother spending a single second to consider if he should surrender. While Riku currently scored a much larger number of hits upon the red and black clothed boy's person, the younger islander was not ready to believe this fight was lost just yet.

"I can keep going. What, you scared?" was all he said in response to the other boy's latest taunt. The words came out a little sharper than Sora had intended due to the frustration he was feeling.

Scoffing slightly, Riku shook his head from side to side and pulled his makeshift weapon away from his shoulder. Holding up his left hand slightly to his side, the silver haired boy simply said, "Me? Scared? Yeah right."

"Then prove it," Sora barked at him, quickly racing across the distance between them once he was done talking. As he moved, he dragged his wooden sword slightly behind the left side of his abdominal region.

Falling down to his left knee once he was close enough, Sora skid slightly across the short distance remaining between him and Riku. He physically lashed out at the older boy, swinging his sword upwards with a two-handed vertical cut. Adjusting the angle of his wrist slightly, Riku blocked the blow with one arm while pointing the tip of his weapon towards Sora's right foot. Rising to his full height after that failed exchange, Sora pulled his makeshift weapon until it was just past his left shoulder and then swung towards the older boy's face.

Smirking slightly at his opponent, the silver haired teen swung his own sword upwards and blocked the blow. Taking a step forward before Sora could blink, Riku broke the deadlock by swinging for the shorter boy's head. His toy sword slammed into Sora's forehead and the spiky haired teen buckled beneath the blow with a loud cry. On instinct, the red and black clothed boy let go of his weapon with his right hand and placed the appendage over his forehead.

Instead of pressing his advantage however, Riku merely leaped back a short distance and observed his friend from there. Waving his left arm slightly at his side, the silver haired teen said, "Heh, you still don't got it."

"Be quiet," Sora told him, the words coming out in a slight hiss. After letting go of his head, the young islander shook it slightly from side to side in an attempt to banish the sudden headache he was feeling. It worked and Sora pulled himself back to his full height as quickly as he could.

Allowing his left arm to hang limply at his side, he repeatedly jumped up and down slightly in place while looking at Riku. The action caused his arms to swing slightly at his sides. Recognizing the determined cast to his opponent's face, Riku clicked his tongue before performing a downward swing through the empty air directly in front of him.

"Come on then. Let's go," he said to Sora, sounding a little exasperated and impatient when he spoke the words.

Completing his seventh jump, the red and black cloth boy merely nodded his head. That almost proved to be a mistake as Riku leaped towards. Spinning his body in mid-air, Riku attempted to hit the younger boy with that same spinning slash attack he performed earlier. Sora merely leaped back slightly at the sight of it, causing Riku's wooden sword to hit nothing but empty when he landed directly before where Sora had just been standing.

Holding his weapon with his left hand alone, the spiky haired teen darted forward while his opponent straightened his posture. Coming to a stop directly in front of the taller boy, Sora jabbed his left arm as far as it would go and drove the tip of his wooden sword into Riku's chest. The blow seemed to knock the air out of Riku's lungs because he let loose a loud exhale while widening his eyes.

' _Still don't got it? Yeah right,'_ Sora thought to himself, smirking at the expression on his best friend's face.

Stepping back slightly, Sora raised his toy sword over his left shoulder. Moving forward again as he did so, he brought the makeshift weapon down on Riku's right shoulder again and a grunt of pain flew out of the older boy's mouth when the blow landed. Pulling back again, Sora quickly spun his body around in a counterclockwise rotation while holding his left arm slightly out stretched beside him. He attempted to strike Riku in the left side of his body with the toy sword he was holding.

Unfortunately, Riku recovered his wits while the spiky haired teen's back was to him. Kicking upwards with his feet, the silver haired teen intentionally threw himself onto his back. Sora's wooden sword flew through the empty air his opponent had just inhabited while his spin came to an end. The spiky haired teen's eyes widened when he saw Riku curl himself into a ball directly before him. Raising both his legs over his torso, the silver haired teen planted the tips of his feet just past his head while placing his hands on either side of his face. A moment later, the silver haired teen launched himself off the ground.

Quickly stretching out his legs while he moved through the air, Riku threw himself towards Sora and slammed both of his feet into the other boy's gut. Grunting slightly, the red and black clothed boy closed his eyes as he was knocked off his feet. He fell harshly onto his back while his opponent landed on both feet directly in front of him. Rather than hitting his friend while he was done, Riku merely watched Sora lie on the ground with an apathetic expression on his face.

Though slightly dazed after the back of his head had made contact with the ground, the spiky haired teen was still far from ready to throw in the towel. Shaking his head from side to side while keeping his eyes closed, an angry hiss escaped the red and black clothed boy's mouth once the fog over his mind cleared up.

' _Okay,'_ Sora silently admitted to himself. _'That actually hurt.'_

Having no intention of ever admitting that to Riku, the brown haired boy firmly planted his feet on the ground while pacing his hands to either side of his head. After lifting up his waist slightly, Sora kicked his feet off the ground. Pushing up with his arms, the spiky haired teen momentarily performed a handstand in front of Riku before his feet started to fall in the opposite direction from which they had just come. Smoothly placing both of his feet back on the ground, Sora crouched slightly on all fours for a brief moment before pulling himself back up to his full height. He was still clutching his toy sword in his left hand the entire time he moved. Hearing a slight chuckle come from Riku's direction, a small grimace appeared on Sora's face while he finally opened his eyes.

The older boy was just standing a short distance away, tapping his toy sword against his right shoulder while he waited for Sora to reorient himself. He was once again wearing a small mocking smirk on his face as he did so. The sight of that expression caused Sora's grimace to subconsciously turn into a rather pronounced scowl. A change that Riku definitely noticed, given how his smirk chose to become slightly larger in size a moment later.

Raising his right eyebrow, the movement partially obscured by his silver hair, the taller boy waved his left hand slightly while keeping it close to his abdomen. As he performed those actions, the silver haired teen called out to his opponent. With a rather mocking tone to his voice now, he said, "Don't tell me you're giving up already."

' _He's trying to provoke me,'_ Sora thought to himself, knowing that choice of words was deliberate. His frustration briefly surged when he heard what Riku said. The red and black clothed boy silently admitted, _'It's working.'_

To Riku, all he said was, "You wish."

Taking a hold of his sword with both hands once he was done speaking, Sora held it to the right side of his body and ran towards his opponent. Riku merely smirked at the sight before running forward to meet. Stopping just before they slammed into each other, the two boys simultaneously swung their toy swords at their opponent. The blunt edges of their wooden swords harshly connected directly between the pair and the collision was harsh enough to cause both weapons to disconnect immediately after they touched one another. Their owners leaned back slightly as their arms flew back.

Sora was the first to recover and he swung his makeshift weapon downwards. Riku tried to repositioned his toy sword to block the strike but wasn't fast enough, allowing Sora to land a hard blow on top of his left knee. The slightly taller teen hissed slightly when the attack landed but otherwise didn't react. Pulling his sword towards his left shoulder, he tried to launch a backhanded slash towards the spiky haired teen's face. Sora just leaped back slightly, pulling himself out of Riku's reach. Almost as soon as he landed on his feet, he raced back towards Riku while holding his toy sword above his head.

Swinging it downward as he came to a stop directly before his best friend, the spiky haired teen attempted to slam the weapon into Riku's forehead. The silver haired teen managed to block the attack with his own makeshift weapon, positioning the thing directly before his face as he did so. For a brief moment, both makeshift weapons were locked in another deadlock and they grinded against each other as the two boys tried to overpower one another. Seeing slightly movement come from Riku's legs, Sora looked down just in time to see the older boy lift his left leg off the ground. Before the red and black clothed boy could do anything in response, his opponent proceeded to stretch out his leg and jam his left foot into Sora's guard. More surprised than hurt by the sudden attack, Sora broke the deadlock as he pulled away from Riku by taking several small steps backward.

He wasn't able to recover in time to block another downward swing to his forehead, which Riku quickly followed up on with a backhanded swing to Sora's right shoulder. Both attacks caused a small cry to erupt from Sora's throat and he let go of his sword with his left hand. Rather wildly swinging his sword in front of him, he retreated a few more steps away from Riku. The silver haired teen just watched him go with a confident look on his face, holding his sword diagonally in front of his body as he did so.

' _This is ridiculous,'_ Sora thought to himself as he came to a stop, huffing and puffing where he stood. Looking at his best friend, all the spiky haired teen could think was, _'When did he get so good? I can barely keep up with him today. Was he holding back in our previous fights?'_

Admittedly, in spite of the red and black clothed boy's significant confidence in his skills as a swordfighter, the silver haired teen standing a short distance away from him had always been a challenge for him during their bouts. Riku wasn't widely acknowledge as the best fighter in their age group because of his good looks after all. Especially not after he once fought Wakka, Tidus, and Selphie at the same time and took them down with little efforts. It was a feat that Sora himself had not yet managed to replicate, something that slightly annoyed the spiky haired teen.

Narrowing his eyes slightly, Sora once again took hold of his sword with both hands and prepared himself for Riku's next attack. He held his wooden sword directly before his torso while his body burned with the desire to resume fighting. The red and black clothed boy resisted the impulse to just charge at his best friend again, wanting to let the older boy make the first move this time.

To Sora's relief, his best friend did not keep him waiting long. Apparently understanding that the other boy wasn't going to come after him any time soon, Riku jumped towards Sora. His body rose further into the air than any of his previous jumps. As he ascended, the silver haired teen raised his sword above and slightly behind his head. After his body started to descend towards the slightly younger boy and the hard ground they were fighting on, Riku waited until the last momentum before swinging his sword towards Sora in a downward chop.

The spiky haired teen had already realized what Riku intended to do halfway through the boy's jump. Not bothering to even think of blocking the blow, the spiky haired teen leaped back slightly. Riku landed in a low crouch, his left arm held out to the side while his sword slammed against the ground. His makeshift weapon and right arm seemed to shake slightly from the impact but that could have just been Sora's imagination. The red and black clothed boy attempted to close the distance between them in order to launch an attack on his best friend. Before he managed anything more than a single step, Riku suddenly straightened himself while swinging his toy sword in front of him. Sora managed to block the strike with his own makeshift weapon but was so surprised by the sudden motion he immediately took two steps back.

Now back to his full height, Riku almost casually took two steps forward to continue his assault. Holding his sword over his right shoulder as he did so, he again brought the weapon down in a single-handed chop once he stopped advancing towards his opponent. Stretching his arms forward slightly, Sora held his makeshift weapon in an almost perfectly horizontal line as he blocked the blow. The force behind Riku's strike was sufficient enough to make the spiky haired teen's arms fall slightly towards the ground. Seeing Riku pull his arm back for another backhanded swing, Sora realized he wouldn't be able to pull his guard back up in time and he quickly leaped back a short distance again.

This action seemed to amuse Riku because the moment Sora had landed back on solid ground, he saw a mocking smirk was once again positioned on the silver haired teen's face. Lifting his left arm slightly at his side, the older boy called out to his friend and said, "What are you afraid of?"

' _I'm not afraid of anything'_ the brown haired boy silently insisted with a small frown, just barely managing to stop himself from saying the words out loud. Looking at Riku, Sora's blue eyes narrowed slightly when he saw how far he was currently standing from the center of the small island.

A quick glance over his left shoulder confirmed Sora's newfound suspicion. His frown deepened when he saw that he was now only a few steps away from the north-eastern portion of the island's round edge. All he needed to do was take a few more backwards steps and he would fall into the ocean. That was something the spiky haired teen wanted to avoid because, according to one of the few rules he and Riku had agreed one when they first started these fights, falling into the water counted as an automatic loss for whoever did it. The only other ways currently available for Sora to lose the fight was for the red and black clothed boy to issue a verbal surrender, become too exhausted to keep fighting, or getting knocked unconscious for at least ten seconds.

Quickly turning to his right, Sora saw that the bridge connecting this play island to its much larger counterpart was a few steps in that direction. According to another one of the few rules the two boys had agreed on, neither combatant was allowed to step on that wooden construct.

Turning his head to look back at Riku, Sora had a strong suspicion that his best friend had been purposefully herding him towards the edge this whole fight. The other boy likely didn't want to hit him hard enough to knock Sora unconscious right now and he knew Sora was unlikely to stop fighting of his own violation, no matter how exhausted and injured he became. Noticing that the other boy was still wearing that annoying smirk on his face, the spiky haired teen had to wonder if he was trying to provoke him into doing something reckless by constantly wearing that expression.

Pushing that thought aside for now, Sora glanced past Riku's left shoulder and looked towards Kairi's current location. The auburn haired girl was sitting cross legged on the curling trunk belonging to the sole paopu fruit bearing tree on this small isle. Rather than looking towards her two closest friends, the redhead's gaze was locked onto something in her lap. She was currently using both of her small hands to fiddle with whatever object was located there. The object's form was completely hidden Sora's sight at the moment, obscured by her legs.

As if sensing Sora's gaze on her right then, Kairi lifted her head and threw a glance towards her friends. Her lips morphed into a small frown as she did so. Without a word, she shook her head from side to side slightly and then returned her gaze to whatever she was currently working on at the moment.

Given the redhead's general disregard for the somewhat friendly fights that broke out between her two best friends, her apathy towards their current match was no big surprise to Sora. She had made a few half-hearted protests that this whole thing was pointless while the three of them were walking to this island earlier. However, even the auburn haired girl had known back then that her words were falling on two sets of deaf ears. The two boys had been raring to go at it all afternoon so Kairi had more or less given up trying to stop them by that point in time. Her words were spoken out of a desire, if not obligation, to state her feelings on the matter more than anything else.

At the very least she was happy that the two of them, with differing degrees of reluctance on their part, had listened to her earlier today and postponed this fight until after they were finally done building the raft. Including a friendly lunch break that had lasted for half an hour, it took the trio just over three hours to put the finishing touches on their creation. Riku and Sora were the ones who took care of adding the additional logs the spiky haired teen had collected while Kairi set the sail by herself.

When they had finally finished the raft, all three of them had been filled with a great sense of pride at what they had made. Sure, it wasn't a beautiful work of art but it was still something they had made together and the first step in achieving their shared dream. Their pride had quickly turned to joy and excitement when the trio acknowledged the fact that they would finally begin their journey in two days' time.

Were it not for the issue of supplies, which they had neglected to secretly collect so far, the three friends would have actually started their sea-faring voyage as early as tomorrow morning. Since the sun was starting to set in the distance by that point, the three of them had decided to leave the scavenger hunt for tomorrow. None of them had felt like combing the island right then and it was getting dark, which would make finding anything rather difficult since they wouldn't be able to easily see what they were looking for. Kairi also had a curfew that was coming up soon and she needed to get back to the mayor's house within the next hour according to her household's rules.

In fact, the three of them would normally be rowing back to town at this time of day. Part of the reason they weren't was because they had lost track of time while working on the raft earlier. Sora had also been most unwilling to wait for tomorrow to have his fight with Riku. The spiky haired teen privately worried that he would forget to challenge him again and that neither of his two friends would bother to remind him. Kairi certainly wouldn't though Sora wasn't entirely sure about Riku. The silver haired teen might speak up but he might also stay silent if he thought it was funny for some reason. His sense of humor had become rather difficult for the red and black clothed boy to understand these days. And, if the brown haired boy was honest, it was putting a small strain on their friendship.

Since Riku had accepted Sora's challenge without any complaints, Kairi had no choice but to either go home on her own or stay and wait for the two boys to finish the match. She chose to stay, preferring to row across the water with company. That was how the three of them had all ended up here, with Kairi minding her own business while the two boys went at each other on the smallest of the two play islands.

Unfortunately for Sora, he was really off his game today for some reason. He never once managed to set the pace of this fight for a considerable length of time and Riku had hit Sora at least five times for every single blow the spiky haired teen managed to land on his best friend. It was really wearing down the red and black clothed boy while Riku seemed to be full of boundless energy this evening. Worse, the silver haired boy had Sora all but cornered against the edge of the isle.

However, despite the clear disadvantage he was currently facing, the spiky haired teen still refused to even consider surrendering to his best friend. His pride wouldn't allow him to do so. The brown haired boy was still convinced he could turn this around and win this fight. He just had to find a way to do that.

Once again focusing his gaze on Riku's face, the spiky haired teen silently swore to himself that was going to knock the smirk his friend was wearing off his face. Wanting to get away from the edge, he started walking towards the other teen. The silver haired teen didn't seem to like that idea as he started running towards Sora at full speed, resting the blunt edge of his toy sword against his right shoulder as he did so. Before long he leaped across the remaining distance, spinning himself in mid-air while swinging his sword. Stepping to his right, Sora simultaneously avoided the attack while slamming the still airborne blunt edge of his makeshift sword into Riku's gut. The blow landed with enough force to knock the air out of Riku's lungs and the silver haired boy fell on his back.

Grinning slightly, Sora turned himself around slightly so that he was directly facing Riku and raised his sword over his head. He swung it down, aiming for Riku's stomach. The older boy simply lifted up his legs and kicked the flat side of the makeshift weapon, cancelling out the attack and pulling it out of Sora's left hand while dragging it to the side. Placing his hands beside his head, Riku continued moving and pulled himself into a handstand. Falling in the other direction, he landed on his feet and raised his wooden sword in front of his body just in time to block Sora's latest two handed swing.

The two boys look each other in the eye as they found themselves locked in another deadlock, their toy swords grinding against each other as Sora tried to force Riku to step back. The silver haired teen wouldn't budge an inch and simply smirked in amusement at the brown haired boy's efforts. A short time later, he suddenly pulled back without warning, pulling his toy sword away from Sora's. Caught off guard, the spiky haired teen leaned forward and his left foot slid out from under him. Before he could regain his footing, his opponent leaned forward and stabbed him on his left shoulder with the tip of his makeshift weapon. While painful, the action restored Sora's balance at the cost of forcing him to take two steps back towards the edge.

' _Yeah, he is definitely trying to knock me off the edge,'_ Sora thought to himself. Feeling Riku pull his weapon back, he let go of his own toy sword with his left hand and performed a horizontal slash in front of him with his right arm.

The tip of his wooden sword just barely grazed the older boy's stomach and didn't seem to affect him in the slightly. Seeing Riku take a step back, Sora determinedly moved forward and raised his sword over his right shoulder. He attempted to bring it down on Riku's left shoulder but the slightly taller boy held up his toy sword and blocked the attack with ease. Quickly pulling back, Sora tried to stab the other teen in the gut but Riku swatted his sword aside with an almost casual swing of his arm. Predicting that Riku's next blow was going to be a backhand swing aimed at either his head or shoulders, Sora ducked down slightly and felt the wooden sword fly over his head.

After quickly pulling the hilt of his own makeshift weapon close to his torso, Sora took hold of it with both hands once again and stabbed towards Riku's abdomen while rising to his full height. He struck Riku directly beneath his ribcage and stretched his arms forward, forcing the older boy to stumble back a few steps. The other boy retaliated by taking a step forward and following it up with another downward chop of his makeshift weapon. Sora simply blocked the strike with his own before swinging horizontally towards the taller teen's head. Riku simply leaned back and under the blow. Seeing the other teen raising his right foot to kick him in the gut, Sora did not press the advance and allowed the foot to pass through empty air before him.

Watching Riku recover his posture, Sora saw that his friend now had an emotionless mask on his face and he pulled his makeshift weapon so it was held diagonally in front of his chest. Opening his mouth, Riku said, "My turn."

He leaped, his body moving straight up rapidly spinning in a clockwise rotation. Seeing Riku complete one spin, Sora saw him outstretch his right arm and realized he was going to try and swing at him again. However, the silver haired boy had also given his opponent a chance to pull himself further away from the edge and Sora did not hesitate in taking it. Taking a small step back just to be safe while clutching his sword in his right hand, Sora threw himself into a roll and slid under Riku while pushing himself forward with his left hand. He easily avoided Riku's spinning slash by performing the maneuver but was just barely fast enough to avoid having Riku land on his body, an event that would have likely caused Sora to end up pinned to the ground beneath the older boy's weight.

Pulling himself into a crouch as soon as he was past his opponent, Sora felt and heard Riku land on his feet directly behind him. He did not need to look over his shoulder to know the other boy was now crouching down as well. The two of them were so close to one another that their backs were almost touching. Almost as one, the boys pulled themselves to their feet and took a single step away from each other. Spinning around once they had done so, they swung at each other and the two weapons connected in mid-air between each other. The toy swords grinded against each other, Riku holding his with only his right hand while Sora was once again clutching his with both hands.

Seeing a small frown now present on the silver haired boy's face caused a rather cheeky grin to appear on Sora's face. He just barely resisted the childish urge to stick his tongue out at Riku. However, he did grin after noticing the edge of the isle was directly behind Riku now.

' _That's how I am going to beat him,'_ Sora decided, all the while maintaining the latest deadlock between him and Riku. Focusing his gaze on Riku's face, the spiky haired teen thought to himself, _'Let's see how much Riku likes going for a swim.'_

It would be poetic justice for Sora to use Riku's very own strategy to take him down. The spiky haired teen found that he liked that idea a lot. Pulling back his toy sword, Sora leaped away from his opponent. Landing only a short distance from Riku, he was about to run back towards his best friend when he heard Kairi call out to the two of them.

"You guys done yet. It's getting rather late," the auburn haired girl practically shouted them, her voice sounding rather annoyed as she did so.

His legs locking in place, Sora turned his head slightly so he could look at Kairi over his right shoulder. The spiky haired teen saw that the redhead was watching them once more. There was a small impatient frown on her face and she was sitting with her hands resting on her knees.

"That's his fault, not mine," Riku answered her, dragging Sora's gaze back to him. The spiky haired teen narrowed his eyes slightly when he saw the older teen had taken a few steps forward while his gaze was focused on Kairi. The action put some distance between Riku and the north-eastern portion of the island's edge.

' _At least he didn't attack me while I wasn't looking,'_ Sora thought to himself with a small frown. Considering that his opponent was still rather close that particular part of the isle's edge, the red and black clothed boy didn't think it was going to make much of a difference. _'Guess I'll just have to put in a bit more effort in taking him down.'_

Lowering his upper body slightly, the spiky haired teen was about to charge his friend and he saw Riku raise an eyebrow while looking back at him. The silver haired teen didn't look very concerned right now and simply took his usual stance, waiting for Sora to make his move. Before the red and black clothed boy could start his approach towards the older teen, he heard Kairi could out to him specifically.

"Sora?" was all she said.

Shaking his head slightly in annoyance, the spiky haired teen resisted the urge to look back at her and take his eyes off of Riku again. Instead, he called out to Kairi without turning his head to peer over his shoulder.

"We'll be finished soon, I promise. This will all be over in another minute," Sora assured her, sounding as confident as he felt about his chances of winning this bought. To the spiky haired teen's slight annoyance, his words seemed to amuse Riku because the older boy was smirking at him again.

"You sure about that?" he asked, sounding like he didn't think Sora had a good chance at beating him right now. "You haven't been doing so well today."

Rolling his eyes, Sora refused to concede the point. Instead, the red and black clothed boy started running towards his opponent while holding his toy sword to the left side of his body. He swung wildly at Riku, who surprised Sora slightly by stepping back to avoid the attack instead of trying to block it with his own wooden sword. Didn't he realize that was bringing him closer to the edge of the island?

Pushing that aside, Sora continued his advance, taking another confident step forward while raising his sword above his head. This time, when he swung down, Riku did block the attack by holding his makeshift weapon above his head. Seeing the older teen smirking at him caused Sora to growl in frustration and he pulled his wooden sword back, breaking the physical connection between them. After holding his sword slightly past the right side of his body, Sora swung towards Riku's face. Once again, the older boy stepped back to avoid the blow rather than attempting to block it.

Bringing his sword up to his chest, Riku retaliated by launching a backhanded swing towards Sora. Refusing to step back and unable to bring his sword in time to block the attack due to how he was holding it all the way to his left, Sora simply leaned back to avoid the blow. He barely made it, the wooden blade coming dangerously close to his chin as it flew back. Pulling himself forward, Sora attempted another overhead swing but Riku caught it with his own makeshift weapon, which he quickly placed diagonally in front of his body. Still smirking at his opponent, Riku surprised Sora by taking another step back towards the edge while his arm didn't even twitch slightly from the amount of pressure the spiky haired teen was forcing upon it.

' _What is he doing? Is he treating this like a game?'_ Sora thought to himself. Feeling rather affronted by the notion, Sora scowled slightly and decided, _'He's going to regret not taking me seriously.'_

Pulling back his sword, Sora took a firm step back and prepared to launch a two handed stab towards Riku's chest. Even if the other boy blocked this blow, the spiky haired teen was confident he could exert enough force to drive Riku right up to the edge of the isle. Assuming he didn't send the silver haired teen sending him falling off said edge. Stabbing forward with all the strength he could muster, Sora saw Riku's smirk turn into a full out grin at his choice of attack.

"Heh, got you," the taller boy said before suddenly stepping to his right. Moving forward, Riku spun his body around as he passed a wide eyed Sora, whose on forward momentum was now pushing _him_ to the edge of the pillar.

Feeling Riku's sword slam into his shoulder blades only increased the speed Sora was moving at. Desperate to stop himself, Sora let loose a loud cry as he let go of his sword with his right hand. He started swinging both hands at his sides, as if hoping one of them would latch on to something and stop his advance while he stepped closer to the edge of the island. By some small miracle, the spiky haired teen's body stopped moving just before he fell off the island. He froze in place, staring down at the water below and breathing heavily while his toes hanged over the edge, wiggling in the open air.

Taking a deep breath through his nose, Sora thought to himself, _'Oh, man. That was close.'_

The red and black clothed boy call out to him from a short distance behind him. He said, "It's over, Sora. You can't win this one. Surrender?"

Scowling slightly, Sora refused to agree with the older boy and quickly turned around so he could face him. Still holding his sword at his side with his left hand alone, he looked back at Riku with narrowed eyes. The silver haired boy was standing less than a step away while taking his usual guarded stance. There was no smirk anywhere on his face, which had taken the form of an expressionless mask. Looking over his shoulder, Sora could see Kairi was leaning towards them slightly where she sat. He was too focused on Riku's face to properly see her expression though.

"Surrender?" Sora spoke out loud. A small smirk grew on the spiky haired teen's face as he said, "Gee, Riku. You sounded like you don't know me at all just now."

The older boy just rolled his eyes at the taunt and Sora gave a loud yell as he stepped towards him a moment later. Raising his sword over his left shoulder, the red and black clothed boy swung it down in a chopping motion. Riku deflected it with a strong swing of his own right arm, the blade sections of both makeshift weapons making contact in mid-air. Recovering quickly, Sora pulled his left arm to his chest and then tried one of those back-handed swings his opponent was so fond of using today. Rather than attempting to block the attack, Riku instead threw himself flat on his back.

As his makeshift weapon sailed through the now empty air before him, Sora's eyes widened in shock and horror when he saw Riku once again curl into a ball. The silver haired teen placed his hands on either side of his head while his toes touched the ground just past the top of that same head.

' _No,'_ was all Sora could think at the sight of his friend in such a posture, recognizing the signature stance of Riku's so called Counter Roll. The spiky haired teen started to pull himself to his right in an attempt to avoid the maneuver.

He wasn't anywhere near fast enough.

The other boy threw himself off the ground before Sora could even take a single step. Quickly extending his legs, Riku's feet slammed into the spiky haired teen's torso with an unrelenting force that would not be denied. His right foot landed directly on Sora's chest while his left one struck the blue eyed boy in the upper portion of his stomach. Together, they threw Sora off his feet and sent him sailing over the edge of the island.

"Nooooo!" Sora cried, the word leaving his mouth just before his body started to descend towards the ocean below. His makeshift weapon fell out of his hand as he fell towards the water.

He frantically waved his arms all around him in the hopes of somehow stopping his descent but found nothing but empty air all around him. Air that seemed to surge away from him as he fell at a rapid pace, barely noticing Riku pull himself to his feet on the edge of the isle.

Reluctantly consigning himself to his fate a moment later, the red and black clothed boy regained his composure and he just barely had enough to time to suck in a deep breath. At the same time, he closed his blue eyes just before he vanished beneath the water. As he fell onto and then through the liquid's shifting surface, his body caused quite the splash.

Feeling the rather cold salty water quickly surround him, Sora shivered slightly as he continued to descend. He was now falling at a much slower rate compared to when he was moving through the air, his pace slowing so quickly it seemed to be an almost instantaneous shift. With his body somehow reorienting itself so he fell feet first on its own, Sora's bare toes were the first to make contact with the wet sands that marked the bottom of this particular section of the ocean. The rest of his feet followed and they slightly sunk into the dark brown mass, pushed downward by the weight of the water and the rest of Sora's frame.

Crouching down like he had been punched in the gut as soon as he stood on with the sand, Sora felt a small round stone was directly underneath the toes of his right foot. Small bubbles were bursting out of his closed mouth at a steady pace and they climbed towards the surface of the water, nonchalantly leaving him behind as they did so.

Knowing he couldn't just stay here and hold his breath for ever, Sora straightened his body and threw his arms out to the sides. While waving his arms slightly, the spiky haired teen pushed himself off the sands. Kicking the water with his feet while repeatedly swinging his arms at his sides, Sora soon pulled his head and shoulders out of the ocean while causing another splash, one significantly smaller than the previous one.

Opening his mouth wide, the young islander tilted his head back and gasped for air while kicking his legs below him, the latter motion meant to keep his body from sinking underneath the waves again. To assist with that, Sora swung his arms slightly at his sides. After finally opening his eyes while he swam in place, the spiky haired teen was not entirely surprised to see Riku looking down at him from where the silver haired boy had just knocked Sora off the small isle. He was, however, a little annoyed by it.

"Like I said, Sora," the silver haired teen loudly called down to him, his face and tone expressionless. Raising his left hand to near shoulder height while forming a loose V-formation with the attached arm, the older boy said, "You still don't got it."

His piece said, the other islander promptly turned around and walked out of sight, very likely heading over to Kairi and the paopu fruit bearing tree. Once he could no longer see the other boy, Sora scowled slightly and slapped the water to either side of his torso with both arms out of frustration. The action generated two rather large splashes around his body and the brown haired boy flinched slightly as several water droplets threatened to come into contact with his eyes.

' _Wonderful. Now the score is 64 to 33,'_ Sora thought to himself, increasing Riku's larger number of victories by a single point while he did so. Not all of his victories came from sword fights though. Speaking of which, Sora realized he had miscounted just now and his scowl deepened slightly when he remembered the two boys had been fighting to decide the outcome of their earlier race. _'Scratch that. It's 65 to 33.'_

After shaking his head from side to side Sora forced himself to stop thinking about how far behind he was in their little competition, pushing aside the mixture of disappointment and aggravation he was currently feeling because of it. He needed to get out of the ocean before his clothes got too badly soaked or risk earning the ire of his mother, which the spiky haired teen definitely did not feel like facing at this time.

Still there, was something else he had to do first.

Turning his face towards the evening sky, Sora closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Once he had done so, he stopped moving his limbs and allowed his body to sink beneath the waves once more. After the water had fully surrounded him, Sora opened his eyes and gently started swinging his legs to stop his descent. A few bubbles escaped his mouth as the red and black clothed boy look around and tried to locate his fallen toy sword. Fortunately, it didn't take the young islander long to catch sight of the weapon. He found it currently resting against the base of the small isle, its position slightly below and to the left of Sora's own location.

Sora quickly dove toward the thing and swam towards it head first. While there were plenty of spares in the small storage shack the adults had built on the larger play island, Sora had never been fond of littering or wastefully discarding still useful objects. Stopping his momentum once he was close enough to grasp his target, the red and black clothed boy reached for the makeshift weapon with his right arm and took hold of it with his right hand. His fingers tightened around the hilt as he pulled it out of the sands with a soft tug.

Feeling his lungs start to burn from the lack of air available, Sora twisted his body back and pointed his head towards the water's surface. Descending slightly because of the sudden motion, his feet once again came into contact with the wet sands. Pushing up with his legs a moment later, Sora started swimming upwards. Closing his eyes when he got close to the surface of the water, the spiky haired teen soon pulled his head and chest out of the ocean and took a deep breath.

With his little side mission now completed, the spiky haired teen opened his eyes and started heading back to his friends. Instead of taking the long way and swimming to the larger island so he could climb onto the bridge after taking a short walk across the beach, Sora swam around the smaller isle until he reached its southern side. He found a rather old ladder that was made out of dark brown wood, one that had clearly seen better days, waiting for him there. It was due for a replacement soon but the spiky haired teen believed it could hold his weight well enough at the moment.

Placing his wooden sword directly before his face while he swam before the ladder, Sora opened his mouth as wide as he could and bit down on the wooden blade. Now holding the makeshift weapon out of the water through the use of his teeth, the spiky haired teen pushed himself across the small distance remaining between him and the ladder by swinging his arms and legs. As annoying as it was to hold the toy sword like this, Sora had no other way to climb the ladder and hold onto it at the same time. He was going to need use both his hands and feet to pull himself up to the surface of the isle. Still, the young islander couldn't help but grimace slightly around the makeshift weapon due to the taste of wood and salt water filling his mouth right now.

Breathing through his nose, the red and black clothed boy grasped one of the ladder's lower steps with his left hand. Pulling himself upwards and out of the water, he placed his right foot on a slightly lower step while reaching out to another one slightly higher up with his right hand. Using both feet in conjunction with his arms, Sora pulled himself out of the water and the slightly soaked boy climbed back up to the top of the small isle. Placing his arms on the hard granite, he spat the wooden sword out of his mouth before pulling the rest of his body onto the surface of the island.

Before he straightened his posture, Sora took hold of the weapon with his left hand and grasped it by the hilt. Lifting his head as he pulled himself upright a moment later, the red and black clothed boy saw his friends were right where he expected them to be. Kairi was still sitting on the curling tree and she raised her hand to silently wave a greeting, a small smile on her face as she did so. Rather than continue sitting cross legged on top of the large trunk, she had thrown her legs over the side and her toes were currently pointing towards the ocean. Riku was facing that same direction while leaning against the base of that same tree with his arms crossed against his chest. Unlike Kairi, he gave away nothing to indicate that he had noticed Sora and looked directly in front of him, seemingly searching for something in the ocean water.

Waving back to Kairi with his right hand, Sora started walking towards them in silence. As he did so, he gave himself a quick examination and felt slightly relieved when he saw that his clothes weren't too badly soaked right now. While most clothes on Destiny Islands were made to be resistant to the salt water, they still could not stand contact with large volumes of it over very long periods of time. Fortunately for Sora, by the time he got home tonight there should be no evidence that he had taken a dip in the sea for his mother to find.

Coming to the base of the paopu fruit bearing tree, the spiky hared teen noticed Riku's toy sword was leaning against it. The tip was pressed against the ground as it leaned on the opposite side of the tree, which was rooted firmly between the object and the silver haired teen. After twirling his own wooden sword slightly in his left hand, Sora took hold of it by the blade with that same hand before chugging it lightly towards the tree. After slamming against the base of the trunk, it fell down to the ground and lay still on its side.

Walking past it without so much as a second glance, Sora reached Riku's location and started to move past him. As he did so, the silver haired boy turned his head slightly to look at him and asked Sora a question.

"Did you enjoy the swim?" was all he said, not sounding like he actually cared or wanted an answer. Sora gave him one anyway.

"Shut it, you jerk," said the spiky haired teen. As he walked past the older boy, he lightly punched the other teen's right arm with his right fist.

More of a soft tap than an actual attempt to hurt the other boy, all the attack did was make Riku give an amused hum as he curled his lips into a faint smirk. Rolling his eyes slightly at the sound, Sora continued on his way without another word and soon walked past Kairi as well. The auburn haired girl grinned down at him as she sat with her hands at her sides, gripping the rounded length of the trunk she was sitting on.

"Welcome back," she said to him, sounding like she meant it. Not saying anything in response just yet, Sora turned towards the tree once he had fully passed her. Momentarily grasping the trunk with both hands, the spiky haired teen pulled himself up and twisted his body around in order to face the same direction as his friends while he sat down beside the redhead.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," was all he said, throwing Kairi a small smile as he did so. The redhead just giggled slightly, covering her mouth with her left hand as she pulled her upper body slightly away from him.

Sora's grin just widened slightly at the sound. Turning his head to look at Riku a moment later, he caught the silver haired teen looking up at him with one eye. Seeing that Sora had noticed he was observing him, the currently expressionless boy turned his head away from his friend and looked back at the ocean. The setting sun had caused the water to develop a strong orange-red tint and a similar shade now filled the evening sky.

Before Sora could say anything to his friend and inquire about his actions just now, Kairi spoke up between them and brought the spiky haired teen's gaze towards her.

"I'm glad we finally managed to finish the raft," she told her friends, sounding quite pleased about that fact. Not that Sora could blame her, he was in a similar mood after all.

' _No more carrying heavy logs for me,'_ Sora thought, a warm sigh exiting his own mouth. Having closed his eyes while he exhaled, he felt rather saw Kairi turn her gaze towards him. Opening them a moment later, the spiky haired teen tried to cover up what he was thinking by saying, "Yeah, me too. It's about time."

His words brought another short giggle out of Kairi's mouth and this time the redhead covered her mouth with her right hand as she did so. Smiling at her, Sora heard the giggling come to an end when Riku decided to suddenly speak up and join the conversation.

"We might have gotten it done earlier if a certain pair of people I know weren't being so lazy all the time," the silver haired teen casually announced. Looking towards him, both Sora and Kairi saw that the older boy had turned his head in their direction and he was currently watching them with a smirk on his face.

"Yeah, yeah," Sora retorted, casually waving his right hand in a dismissive motion beside his head.

Feeling the sudden urge to lie down on his back, Sora turned around so that he was facing Kairi directly, throwing his left leg over the paopu fruit tree's trunk as he did so. Crossing his arms behind his head, the red and black clothed boy leaned down against the curling trunk while Kairi observed him with a small smile on her face.

Turning his head to the right once he made himself comfortable, Sora looked out over the water and said, "It doesn't really matter now. The day after tomorrow, we're finally going to hoist the anchor and set sail."

Kairi burst out giggling, the sound even louder than his previous two attempts as she repeatedly kicked her legs forward. Wondering what he said, Sora looked up at her with a small frown on his face. Once she had mastered herself, the auburn haired girl turned back to him with a teasing smile on her face and said, "The raft doesn't have an anchor, Sora. Remember?"

Flushing slightly, the spiky haired teen just rolled his eyes before saying, "You know what I mean."

"You're assuming that something else won't take away too much of our time tomorrow," was Riku's response, his tone completely casual as he turned his own gaze back to the water. "We still need to collect some supplies for the trip. No point setting sail if we run out of food soon after."

"I know that," Sora responded, closing his eyes just before he spoke. He continued speaking without opening his eyes. "Relax, we'll find the time to take care of it tomorrow. It's no big deal."

"Do you even have any suggestions about what we should take with us?" Riku asked him, a faint teasing tone to his voice. Sora was about to lightly snap at the older boy for that remark but stopped himself at the last second, not fully registering the question until the last second.

"Uhmm," was all he said, unable to stop the sound from coming out of his mouth in time.

Snorting, Riku simply said, "I figured that was the case."

' _Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up,'_ was Sora's silent response to that statement, still lying down on his back with his eyes closed the whole time. Feeling Kairi place her right hand on his right knee, the spiky haired teen opened his eyes and saw her looking down at him with a small kind smile on her face.

"Something up, Kairi?" he asked her, lifting his right eyebrow slightly while he did so. The redhead shook her head in the negative before turning her gaze back to the water.

"No," she said to him, her voice sounding a little cheerful to the red and black clothed boy's ears. A moment later she added, "I'm just glad we're going to be heading out soon. I'm looking forward to seeing your old home, Sora."

The red and black clothed boy released a small snort. A moment later, he closed his eyes again and said, "You make it sound as if that's going to be the first place we'll find. What makes you think we'll be that lucky? We could end up finding your hometown first."

"Maybe," Kairi admitted, not taking her own blue eyes off the water. "But I guess that's just what makes this journey so exciting. My hometown, yours… I can't help but wonder what else we're going to find out there?"

"Who knows," Riku told her, shrugging his shoulders slightly as he rejoined the conversation. Sora opened his eyes to gaze at the darkening sky while his best friend continued speaking. Almost stating it like a fact, the silver haired teen said, "We'll never know by staying here."

Humming to himself, the younger boy couldn't help but silently agree they needed to leave the Destiny Islands or else they would never find out what else was out there. A small frown appeared on his face as Sora decided to pose a question to his friends. Looking back, he probably should have asked this a few days ago. Maybe he was just feeling a little bit nervous, despite his excitement, and that was what brought this question to mind.

"How far do you think a raft can take us?" he said, posing the question towards both of his friends while keeping his gaze locked on the evening sky above. The spiky haired teen just barely saw Kairi rapidly turn her head in his direction and look at him with a surprised expression on her face.

"Guess we'll find out soon enough," Was Riku's quite simple reply, the older boy taking the question in stride. Turning his head slightly, Sora saw him lightly waving his left hand in front of him for a moment before once again crossing his arms over his chest. "If we have to, we'll think of something else."

' _And all the effort we put into that project will go down the drain,'_ Sora thought to himself, a small frown working its way onto his face at the thought. _'What a bummer?'_

After hearing what Riku just said, the red and black clothing boy couldn't help but recall how his friends Tidus and Wakka once claimed they had tried to sail away from the Destiny Islands last year themselves. The two boys had in fact disappeared for a few days so it is possible that was what they were doing back then. The town was rather small so when someone disappeared people tended to notice they were gone and there weren't a lot of places where a missing person could hide in the Destiny Islands.

When the two boys had eventually reappeared, they talked about how they had tried to sail across the ocean only to find that they simply couldn't to go any further after a certain point, as if there was an invisible wall directly in front of them. So they reluctantly turned around and came home. No one had really believed the two trouble makers back then, Sora included, but he found himself thinking about that story now that his own voyage was coming up. Was there really something out there that was going to keep the trio from sailing away from the Destiny Islands and seeing what else was out there?

The thought made Sora's fingers curl into fists, the action covered up by his spiky mane. A sudden burst of giggles brought Sora out of that particular train of thought and he looked up at his red haired friend, noticing it was coming from her. Mustering control of herself, Kairi decided to ask a question herself.

"So, suppose you get to another _world_ -" she started to say, only to interrupted herself with another round of giggles. Regaining control of herself a moment later, the auburn haired teen continued to face Riku as she completed her question. "What would you do there?"

Sora did not miss the odd inflection she had put on the word "world" when she spoke. While none of the trio had actually started to believe the raft could take them across the sea of stars over their heads, worlds had been the term Riku and Sora had most often used to describe distant lands outside the Destiny Islands when they were younger. It had stuck with them while they got older and made the journey they were soon going to undertake seem so much broader and more wondrous to Sora.

Besides, foreign lands beyond their islands might end up being so different from their own in so many ways that the trio might as well be stepping into a different world upon discovering any one of them. And who knows, perhaps one of those islands would actually have a way for them to travel the sea of stars as well.

Humming to himself, Riku lowered his head slightly. Sora found himself actually curious to hear what he had to say and waited patiently for the silver haired teen to collect his thoughts and speak up. A moment later, his right eyebrow climbed up his forehead slightly when he heard Riku outright admit, "Well, I haven't really thought about it."

' _Have any of us?'_ Sora thought to himself, a neutral look on his face while he looked down at the older boy. He already knew the answer. The red and black clothed boy had always been focused solely on getting off the islands and seeing other worlds. Looking back, not once had he thought about he would do once he got to a foreign land. Shrugging slightly, the spiky haired boy merely told himself, _'Stressing about that would probably ruin the fun.'_

Unaware of what Sora was thinking just now, Riku continued speaking. With an unusual amount of sincerity in his voice, the silver haired teen said, "It's just… I've always wondered why we're here on this island. If there are any other worlds out there, why did we end up on this one?"

' _Is that your boredom talking, Riku?'_ Sora thought to himself, not speaking up in case the other boy was going to keep on talking.

He had noticed for a while now that his best friend was becoming increasingly frustrated with how little there seemed to be on the islands. The silver haired teen kept it to himself well enough but Sora could see small signs here and there. A small frustrated gleam in his eyes while he scanned the play islands. The way his fingers twitched as if Riku was resisting the urge to make a fist when someone asked if he wanted to play the same ball game two days in a row. The way he would just look slightly exasperated or bored whenever he won a fight these days, regardless of his opponent. It was no surprise to Sora that the older boy had been the one who wanted to see the raft completed the most out of the three of them.

As he suspected, Riku kept on talking without being aware of Sora's private question. His voice was getting slightly more heated now, as if the silver haired teen was trying to get something he had been holding in all this time off his chest and he was unable to stop himself from doing so now that he had started speaking.

"And suppose there are other worlds… Then ours is just a little piece of something much greater," Riku told his friends. After taking a short pause to catch his breath, the silver haired teen turned his head to look up at Sora and Kairi before asking them, "So… we could have just as easily ended up somewhere else, right?"

Sora didn't have an answer to that question. Refocusing his gaze on the darkening sky above the trio, the spiky haired teen simple shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know."

"Exactly," Riku said in response to Sora's answer, not giving Kairi a chance to make up her mind and say something as well. He gave a firm nod of his head while he said the words and uncrossed his arms once he was done speaking. Taking a few steps away from the paopu fruit bearing tree, he looked back at the ocean and said, "That's why we need to go out there and find out. Just sitting here won't change a thing."

As Kairi and Sora looked at each other behind his back, the silver haired boy rather softly added, "It's the same old stuff. So let's go."

' _You make it sound like you were planning to leave even if we decided we don't want to come with you after all,'_ Sora thought to himself, a small frown working its way on his face as he turned his head to his left, focusing his gaze on the back of Riku's head

Truthfully, the red and black clothed boy wasn't entirely interested in figuring out why they were on Destiny Islands in the first place. Simply being able to enjoy life and have a good time with his friends while doing so was all Sora could possible ask for. Thinking so deeply about things like why they are stuck on this particular world, out of all the worlds out there, just wasn't his style. Besides, he liked the Destiny Islands well enough.

Kairi was the one who spoke up next and she once again addressed Riku instead of Sora. The spiky haired teen overheard her say, "You've been thinking a lot about this lately, haven't you?"

"It's all thanks to you guys," Riku told her, turning around so he could look up at his friends while he spoke. Raising an eyebrow, Sora looked the other boy in the eyes. He could see Kairi was also looking down at Riku out of the corner of his eyes.

"If you both hadn't come here… to these islands… I probably would've never thought of any of this," Riku announced, briefly locking gazes with Sora before turning his eyes back towards Kairi. Sora wanted to speak up then but couldn't get the words out.

The spiky haired teen didn't believe for a moment he and Kairi had done everything special. Riku was one of the top students in his class at school after all. Despite the largely aggravating parts of his nature, the silver haired teen was always asking himself questions about stuff around them and trying to find the answer. Even without meeting Kairi and Sora, he would have probably come to wonder if there were other worlds outside these islands by this point in time. That was the impression Sora had of his best friend.

To the red and black clothed boy's surprise, a rare genuine smile broke out on the older teen's face as he looked at Sora and Kairi. It wasn't a smirk but a real smile. With sincerity he didn't often let slip, Riku said, "Kairi… Sora… thank you."

Feeling rather embarrassed and not believing he had done anything to deserve that deserved those words, Sora turned his head away from his friends. Over his shoulder, he slowly drawled out, "No problem."

After giggling slightly to herself for a second while sitting beside Sora's feet, Kairi also spoke up. All she said was, "You're welcome."

A steady comfortable silence enveloped the pair for a short time. Riku was the one who broke it by saying, "It's getting late. You guys should start heading back."

"You'll catch up," Sora stated more than asked, silently agreeing with the suggestion while pushing himself up into a sitting position with his arms. The spike haired teen do enjoy spending time with his friends, he also wasn't all that fond of staying up at night. Doing so would cause him to lose some sleep, which must be avoided at all costs in the brown haired boy's mind.

Once he was sitting perfectly straight, Sora swung his right leg over the trunk while twisting his body to the left. For a moment, he sat beside Kairi while their bodies were turned towards opposite directions. The two teens near simultaneously slid off their shared perch and came to stand on their feet on opposite sides of the large curling trunk. Taking a few steps away from the paopu fruit bearing tree, Sora heard Riku's response coming from its other side. The tree was large enough to prevent him from currently seeing either of his friends from his current position.

"Yeah, there's something I got to do first. I won't be long, I promise," was what Riku said to the spiky haired teen. His tone sounded like he was trying to reassure the younger boy, who rolled his eyes slightly when he heard it.

"Okay then, see you at the boats," Sora said to the silver haired boy, running his right hand through his spiky hair while he spoke. The red and black clothed boy just barely managed to suppress a yawn when he was done speaking and he saw Kairi walk around the base of the curling tree.

When she started walking in his direction, the brown haired boy stepped back slightly. Bowing forward by a very small amount, he slightly extended his left hand towards the nearby bridge and said, "Ladies first,"

"Why thank you, Sora. It seems you can teach a ruffian how to act like a gentleman after all," the auburn haired girl teased him slightly in response, a small smirk on her face while she walked past him.

Sora groaned to himself when she said that, privately wondering if Riku had somehow corrupted her with his odd sense of humor. He resolutely ignored the chuckles he heard coming from the silver haired boy's direction as he turned to follow his shorter friend from a slight distance. As he moved toward the bridge, the spiky haired teen once again crossed his arms behind his head.

' _Hopefully mom won't be too upset that I was out so late. Wonder if she made anything for a late dinner?'_ Sora thought to himself absentmindedly. The red and black clothed boy was starting to feel rather hungry. As he moved, Sora slowly turned his head from side to side in order to take in the full scope of the island he was approaching, not wanting to just peer at Kairi's back while he walked a short distance behind her.

Even if she was annoyed by his late return, the red and black clothed boy doubted that his mother would be too upset with him tonight. They were in the middle of summer vacation right now so he didn't have any school work to catch up on, much less a need to get up early in order to have enough time to prepare for school tomorrow. She tended to be more lenient with his sleeping habits when there wasn't any school for him to worry about. There also wasn't any dangerous animal or person running about the Destiny Islands so Sora was quite safe, no matter how dark it got. With all that in mind, Sora doubted she was going to make him spend most of tomorrow doing chores as punishment for coming home right before the sun had finished its descent.

As he started to reach the halfway point of the bridge's length, the red and black clothed boy heard Riku call out his name. Wondering what the other teen wanted from him now, Sora turned to face him. His blue eyes widened when he saw the silver haired boy start walking across the bridge while throwing something in Sora's direction without giving his friend any sort of warning. Quickly putting both hands in front of his stomach, the spiky haired teen just barely managed to catch the flying object. Tilting his head downwards to get a clear look at said object, Sora's right eyebrow climbed up his forehead slightly when he saw that he was now holding a star shaped fruit that possessed of an orange exterior.

"You wanted one, didn't you," Riku called out to him again.

Had Sora tilted his head upward at that moment, he would have seen the other boy lift his right arm and gently point a finger in the spiky haired boy's direction. The two wooden swords they had been fighting with earlier were currently tucked under the taller boy's left arm. The limb was pressing the two objects against the left side of Riku's torso, the tips of the makeshift weapons pointing back towards the small island.

Frowning in confusion and unable to comprehend what the silver haired teen was after right now, Sora simply identified the object he was holding in his hands. With a soft voice, he said, "A paopu fruit…"

As his voice trailed off, the spiky haired teen started to lift his head and ask Riku what he was trying to achieve by giving Sora something like this. Before he got the chance to ask anything, Riku waved his right arm to the side and said, "You know the old legend about the paopu fruit, right?"

' _Of course, I do. Selphie told me about it a two years ago,'_ the red and black clothed boy silently said to himself, his frown deepening as he recalled that particular memory.

* * *

 _ **Two Years Ago,**_

 _ **Sora's** **House, Destiny Islands, Mid-Afternoon**_

 _It had been in the late spring of that school season when he first became aware of the story. While Sora wasn't as close to the brown haired girl as he was with Kairi and Riku, the two of them were in the same class and often did their homework together, along with studying for tests. Since his two closest friends were in different classes from the spiky haired boy, with Riku being a full grade above Sora, they didn't usually have the same homework as him._

 _Generally Sora worked with both Selphie and Tidus, who was also in their class, the most but the other boy had been invited to a ball game by Wakka and some of his other friends so he skipped this little get together. The three of them alternated the location of their study sessions between their respective houses and the school library. Occasionally, some of the other kids would join them but they all had their own little study groups so such events were rare._

 _On that particular day, Sora and Selphie had decided to try and help each other prepare for their upcoming history test at the brown haired boy's house. Having gone there straight from school, the two teens had commandeered the small round desk on the front porch and gotten to work. Unfortunately, the session had not been quite as helpful as Sora would have liked. The spiky haired teen himself had been rather focused on the work and trying a bit extra hard to memorize the necessary information their teacher had recommended they look at to help them prepare for the test._

 _In contrast, Selphie had been extremely distracted the entire session. While she had her off days before, that particular day had been one of the worst Sora had ever seen. The brown haired girl spent most of that afternoon just sitting across from the spiky haired teen with her left elbow on the table and her head in her left hand while she stared up at the sky with a longing expression. Whenever she bothered to look down at her notes or textbook, which wasn't often and only for short periods of time, it was obvious to Sora that she wasn't really paying attention to what her eyes were skimming over._

 _To his credit, Sora had tried several times to capture her attention with various questions early on in the session but she was absolutely stuck in whatever daydream had taken a hold of her mind. She didn't react to a single one of the blue eyed boy's queries and had yet to take a bite out of the small plate of sandwiches Sora's mother had left on the table for them to share shortly after they had arrived. After about half an hour of waiting for her to remember where she was and that she wasn't alone at the moment, Sora had simply given up on her and left Selphie to her own devices._

 _Therefore, he was quite surprised when she finally did deign to acknowledge his presence after they had been sitting together for about an hour._

" _Hey, Sora," was the first thing that Selphie said to him, calling out to the spiky haired teen with a soft voice. After fidgeting slightly in place because of the unexpected sound, the spiky haired teen brought his head up to look at his study partner._

 _He was a little annoyed to find that she hadn't changed her position at all and was still looking at the clouds. Slightly shorter than Kairi, Selphie was a thing girl with faintly tanned skin and green eyes. She had light brown that fell straight down before transforming into three curls, one at the back of her head and two on either sides of her face. The one on the back of her head was thinner than the other two and reached down to the base of her beck while the two side curls rose up at her cheeks. Since the two of them had come straight from school, she was currently dressed in the girl's version of the school uniform. It consisted of a short sleeved white polo shirt, a sky blue tie, a pleated skirt of the same color, dark blue knee-high socks, and black shoes. She also had a wrist band composed of blue beads on her left wrist._

 _Sitting opposite her, Sora had been dressed in a white short sleeved polo shirt, sky blue pants, regular sized dark blue socks, and black shoes. His crown pendant bearing chain necklace was nowhere in sight and he had discarded his own tie as soon as he could. It was currently hanging off the back of his small chair._

 _Without turning her gaze from the sky, Selphie asked him a question before he could ask what she wanted. "Have you heard about the legendary power of the paopu fruit?"_

'I have a feeling I am not going to like where this is going,' _was Sora's first thought to the question, feeling slightly alarm by the dreamy tone to the brown haired girl's voice. Whenever she got like this, it meant she was going to bring up a subject he himself would not necessarily care for._

 _Putting his pencil down beside his notebook, the spiky haired teen remained and leaned back in his chair. Crossing his arms he gave Selphie an expectant look, silently asking her to get on with it despite the fact that her gaze was turned away from him at this time. As he suspected, the spiky haired teen did not need to say anything to prompt his friend to continue speaking to him. He was a little pleased to see Selphie actually pull her head out of her hand and focus her emerald eyed gaze on his face before she started talking. However, he could see there was still a vacant look in her eyes as she spoke to him while wearing a soft smile on her face._

" _They say if you share it with someone you really care for, it binds you together for ever and ever… through eternity," the shorter teen informed her friend, her voice growing slightly in volume with every word. It hadn't quite reached a shout but the last word still sounded rather loud to his ears._

" _Sounds nice," Sora told her in response, waving his right hand slightly before his chest. His tone was completely bland and he didn't actually mean what he said. The idea of a fruit actually having the power to somehow bind people's lives together sounded like nothing more ridiculous fairy tale to the spiky haired teen's ears._

 _Looking at Selphie, it was clear that the girl hadn't heard a word he just said. Sora could not help but frown slightly as he watched his study buddy close her eyes while emitting a dreamy sigh. She even gently clapped her hands together underneath her chin. Her fingers interlaced themselves._

" _It's so romantic," the girl said, sounding like she was currently speaking more to herself than Sora right then. "I've got to try it some time."_

 _Not wanting to ruin the good mood she was in, Sora simply rolled his eyes and went back to studying for the upcoming history test. Even if he bothered to try, he knew it was largely impossible pull Selphie out of such funks whenever she fell into them._

 _Fortunately, they both still managed to pass their history test a few days later._

* * *

 **Now,**

To this day, the red and black clothed boy had not changed his opinion on the so-called legendary power of the paopu fruit. It just sounded too good to be true to his skeptical young mind. Besides, Sora didn't even like the sour taste of the thing so it was unlikely that the spiky haired teen was ever going to eat one again. Never mind share it with someone else while he did so.

His frown deepened as he continued to look down at the star shaped fruit. He had a feeling why Riku had just given it to him and that particular line of thought gave him a strong urge to rip this thing into tiny chunks with his bare hands. He heard but didn't acknowledge Riku's footsteps as the silver haired boy walked up to him.

As he started to walk past the other boy while holding a wooden sword in each hand by the blunt blade of the item, Riku decided to remind his friend about the legend in his own words. He said, "If two people share one, their destinies become intertwined. They'll remain a part of each other's lives, no matter what."

' _Is this really your best attempt at playing matchmaker between me and Kairi?'_ Sora thought to himself, his frown deepening as he lifted his head and turned it slightly in order to watch his friend walk past him. He knew a lot of the other teens thought the two of them were some sort of couple, or would make a cute one if they started going out, but the spiky haired teen was quite certain he and Kairi were just close friends. He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to go any further than that right now. _'You can't honestly tell me you believe this thing actually has the power to tie our destinies together? Well, Riku?'_

Letting go of the fruit with his left hand, Sora continued to hold it with his right alone while he turned around and looked at Riku's back. He intended to demand answers about the other boy's intentions, wanting to know what he was after just now. Before the spiky haired teen got the chance to say anything however, he saw his best friend casually wave his right arm at him.

Without turning his head to look over his shoulder, Riku rather cheerfully called out to Sora and said, "Come on, I know you want to try it."

Sora flinched slightly where he stood and scowled once he had recollected himself a moment later. The red and black haired boy, with a demand clearly in his tone of voice, said, "Just what are you talking-?!"

He was cut off by a short round of mocking laughter erupting from the older boy's throat. Perhaps expecting Sora to come after him, the silver haired teen broke in to a run and quickly crossed the rest of the bridge. Kairi, apparently unaware of the short conversation going on between the two boys, had long since walked off by herself.

Scowling as he looked at his friend's shrinking back, the spiky haired teen eventually lowered his gaze to the fruit he was holding. Somehow, the sight of it seemed to calm him down. The scowl vanished from the spiky haired teen's face.

' _Man, Riku,'_ Sora thought to himself, shaking his head from side to side while wondering just what had gotten into his best friend. Sure his friend had been like this for a while now but the spiky haired teen was finding it increasingly difficult to recognize the other boy these days. _'What's gotten into you?'_

Sighing heavily where he stood, Sora closed his eyes. With a dispassionate flick of his right arm, he sent the paopu fruit flying over the edge of the bridge. While trying to mentally eliminate the memory of ever having touched the thing from his mind, Sora opened his eyes and took off running after his friend.

If he managed to move fast enough, the spiky haired teen was sure he could beat the older boy to the boats and avenge at least one of his earlier defeats.

* * *

 **Several Hours Later,**

 **Another World, Early Morning**

As had been the royal tradition for many years now, the peaceful silence surrounding the large white and blue citadel known as Disney Castle came to an abrupt end once the clock struck 09:00 am sharp. The many trumpets stationed throughout the majestic – and somewhat crooked looking – castle's frame came to life with one loud voice. Blaring loudly for a full five minutes, the personal residence of King Mickey and Queen Minnie greeted the dawn of the new day with an organized ruckus while simultaneously awakening all but the most thick-headed of the castle's still sleeping inhabitants.

While some of the castle's staff had already been awake and suitably prepared to endure the sound, many found themselves dragged out of the land of dreams by force. A few unlucky sleepers actually fell out of their beds and slammed themselves against the floor, causing pained groans to erupt from their throats. With varying degrees of enthusiasm, the castle residents pulled themselves to their feet and prepared to face the new day.

Formerly sleeping knights quickly donned their uniforms and marched to either the training room or the posts they needed to guard. The former group quickly began going through their exercises for the day. Some of them ended up having practice matches against each other, using blunt weapons while they went at, while others repeatedly tested their melee or archery skills on wooden training dummies. The second group of knights approached the unfortunates among their colleagues who were assigned to watch their posts during the night shift. Relieved of said duties as soon as the newcomers arrived, the slightly exhausted troops promptly marched off to rest, only a few exchanging pleasantries with those coming to replace them.

The members of the castle's security force were not the only people mobilizing at this time. While much of the castle's repair was handled by magically enchanted items, there were still maids and butlers a plenty to keep things organized. They began to scurry about to begin their duties, most of them carrying a clipboard with instructions on what they should focus on tucked under one arm. Meanwhile, the castle blacksmith arrived at his workshop in order to begin working on his craft. He was quite happy to find his apprentices had beaten him there and that the forge had already been heated.

Amidst this small maelstrom of sudden activity, the royal magician of Disney Castle was leisurely walking through the hallways leading to the castle's audience chamber. The long corridors were almost perfectly identical in terms of length and appearance, with long crimson carpet in possession of a golden outline covering much of the floor. Having gotten up at a much earlier hour so he could spend some time practicing his magic in seclusion before attending to his usual morning conference with the king, the spell caster was in quite a good mood today. He had been working on a particular tricky spell lately and felt he had finally managed to master it this morning. Resembling an anthropomorphic duck, the loyal advisor to the king of Disney Castle went by the name Donald Duck.

A rather short fellow, most of Donald's body was covered by soft white feathers. Aside from his rather large and slightly oval-shaped blue eyes, only his yellow-orange bill and similarly colored legs were left untouched by his plumage. His feet were rather large, almost as long as his short legs in fact, but Donald's gait was not affected by that at all. In place of wings, he had somewhat cylindrical looking arms ending in small hands that possessed only three fingers and a single thumb respectively. A small tuft of white feathers poked out of his head, located directly on top of his forehead and between his eyes.

For clothing, Donald was dressed in one of his customary outfits consisting of a large hat and a complex-looking jacket. The hat strongly resembled a rather stereotypical witch's hat but in possession of several modifications to go along with its purple coloring. It possessed a wide and slightly raised brim with gold lining circling the edge while the tip curled in an angular fashion, causing that portion of the hat to appear rather crooked while it reached for the sky. It faintly resembled a question mark with a square shaped head.

His jacket covered much of his torso, baring his rear and the small feathered tail poking out of it. The coat appeared to be composed of three separate sections. The first section covered his chest and stomach while resembling a black sweater with tight sleeves reaching down to his wrists. It stretched just slightly past Donald's waist. Separate portions of its base extended slightly further down Donald's body in the form of four small half-oval shaped protrusions similar to coattails. Their appearance made the sweater look like it had two sets of large upturned round ears resting on either side of Donald's waist while simultaneously pointing towards the floor. The entire base of this article of clothing had a gold lining running along it with two buttons of a similar color on the center of Donald's chest. Poking out from under this vest was the second section of the jacket, a cloth-like blue extension that wrapped around most of Donald's lower body. Over top of the vest, the royal magician wore a plain purple belt with a rectangular shaped metal buckle wrapped tightly around his waist.

The final section of Donald's jacket was light blue in color. Resembling a scarf with sleeves, it had a gold outline along the edges of its base and sleeves. The sleeves themselves were somewhat shorter than Donald's first set but wider in turn, enabling them to hang rather loosely from his arms. The main body of the sweater resembled a rather thick collar with a rounded out appearance that extended down his upper back in a manner reminiscent of a small cape. Two small tentacle-like extensions stretched down from the collar on the front side of Donald's outfit and stopped just short of reaching his belt with their rounded tips. A zipper ran up the length of both these extensions.

As he continued walking through the castle hallways, it didn't take Donald long to notice the increased scramble of activity around him. He smirked slightly to himself as he observed all the anthropomorphic animals moving around him, many stopping what they were doing to give a respectful bow. He greeted most of these individuals with a friendly wave of his right hand as he moved past them.

At the same time, just to be safe, the court magician mentally counted down from twenty before lightly snapping the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. With that small gesture over and done with, the subtle spell Donald had been using to prevent any sound from reaching his ears soon faded away. Once again, the wizard could hear the sounds of running feet all around him as he moved through the hallway.

' _I love that spell,'_ he thought to himself, quite pleased to see he got the timing right and now longer heard the trumpets blaring. Their silence was all Donald needed to hear to know that it was past 09:05 AM.

Relieved that he didn't haven't to worry about his ears being subjected to unnecessary noise, the white feathered duck just barely stopped himself from chuckling. It wouldn't do for the royal magician to suddenly start laughing in the middle of the hall for seemingly no reason, especially with so many witnesses about. Some of the knights and servants might think he was going mad.

Taking the next right turn, Donald found himself walking down an almost deserted hallway. Marching across the red carpet that covered much of the floor, the anthropomorphized duck walked past the staircase that led down to the royal gardens without giving it so much as a sideways glance. As he walked, he soon moved past the few figures in this particular hallway right now.

The foursome were magically enchanted brooms walking back the way Donald had just come from. Thanks to the king's magic, the brooms have been brought to an almost alive state many years ago and keeping the castle clean was their sole responsibility. They were actually quite good at it, Donald had to admit.

Their pale yellow bristles acted like a pair of legs for them to walk on while long thin arms equipped with four fingered hands had sprouted out of the brown handles, the base of which acted as the head of each enchanted broom. Currently, these four brooms were all carrying a wooden bucket filled with water in each hand. From their posture, they barely seemed to register the weight as they marched in a single file line down the hallway. Except for a single cursory glance as he approached the leader, the royal magician paid the quartet no mind. He had long since grown used to the sight after all.

Seeing the sunlight start to enter the corridor do to the many open windows now lining the left wall, Donald turned his head slightly to look outside. Through the large gaps, he could see the royal gardens down below his current position. Surrounded by four walls and possessing only two entrances, the gardens were completely covered in grass, some of which had been cut rather short to create winding pathways for the royal couple to more easily stroll through the place. Rather than flowers or trees, the garden was filled with sculptures covered in grass if not constructed entirely from the green substance. All of these so-called statues were several times larger than Donald himself and many of them resembled some sort of anthropomorphic animal caught in the act of playing a unique musical instrument. No two statues were alike. In the center of the gardens, resting on a small hill, was a miniature castle sculpture. A large half-donut sculpture rested at the base of the hill, its entrance turned to face the grass castle's closed door.

Despite the distance currently between him and the sculpture in the center of the gardens, Donald was able to take notice of a tall but thin figure down by the statue. Dressed in a mixture of casual clothes and steel armor, the captain of the royal knights was lying on his back with his arms crossed beneath his head. Knowing what his colleague and friend was doing down there, the white feathered duck could only sigh after seeing his friend in such a state once again.

' _Only you could sleep through such a racket, Goofy,'_ he thought to himself, slightly shaking his head from side to side as he did so. ' _The entire castle could be exploding all around you and you probably wouldn't even notice the noise until it was too late to save yourself.'_

Donald honestly couldn't tell if he found that an envious, admirable, or ridiculous trait to have now. He supposed it would be nice to be able to sleep through that annoying racket the king insisted on installing many years ago. The court magician had fallen out of bed more than enough times to thoroughly despite the sound of blaring trumpets right now. The royal magician had gotten so sick of the noise that he had actually spent several weeks learning sound manipulation magic solely so he could block it out. Of course after he starting doing that, Donald had to learn how to wake up at an earlier time if he wanted to avoid having to make the king come visit him in his bedchambers while he was still sleeping in order to have their morning conferences.

' _We really need to do something about that habit of yours, Goofy,'_ Donald thought to himself. With a small frown on his bill he asked himself, _'Should I bring it up with his majesty today?'_

Knowing just what the king's response was going to be to that subject, the spell caster merely sighed again. While it was annoying how much the captain of the royal knights tended to slack on his job, his troops were still a finely tuned and disciplined force even after all these years of peace. They knew perfectly what to do and barely even needed Goofy to direct them or oversee their training anymore. Still, the short wizard was certain there were other things the captain of the royal knights could be doing with his time right now. More productive things to be precise.

Pushing all thoughts of the taller figure aside for now, Donald saw he was about to reach his destination. Coming to a stop, he turned around and gazed up at the doors leading to the audience chamber. The large violet constructs with a faded pink outline and large golden handles were just as tall as he remembered. These doors were made for a giant to be able to step into the audience chamber, not someone as small as Donald. They only possessed one true decoration. Located slightly above the golden handles, in the center of each door, was a large grey copy resembling the king's personal seal. It resembled a large grey circle with two smaller circles of the same color poking out from its top in a manner reminiscent of ears more than horns.

Closing his eyes while he looked up at the doors, the anthropomorphic duck held his right fist up in front of his bill and took a moment to clear his throat. It was bad manners to cough while speaking with your friend after all. And it was extra bad to do so when this friend happened to also be your king.

Once he was done with that little ritual, Donald took a step forward and started to lightly bang his right fist on the left door. He avoided the faded pink outline and struck the door directly on its royal purple surface. The royal magician repeated the gesture until he heard a loud _click_ emanate from somewhere inside the door.

Nodding to himself as he pulled his right hand back to his side, Donald stepped forward again and pressed his left hand against the door. With a rather gentle push while he continued to move forward, the short spell caster opened the much smaller rectangular shaped door built for people the same size as him. It was designed to perfectly blend into the larger one so no one who didn't know it was there wouldn't be able to tell it was present just by looking at the closed doors. Stepping through the opening, Donald entered the audience chamber without any fanfare to mark his arrival.

After shutting the door behind him, Donald started walking across the audience chamber. He moved with purpose towards the tall golden throne residing on a small raised blue platform on the other end of the hall. Like the corridor outside, there was a crimson carpet with a golden outline running across the floor. If it didn't stop a short distance away from the entrance to the audience chamber, it would have divided the tiles cleanly in two. The texture of the carpet felt much nicer to the spell caster's bare feet than the tiled floor did.

Primarily white with smallest hint of green in color, the audience chamber was an absolutely massive room built to hold a large crowd. It was designed with such a size for several reasons. These reasons included enabling the king to address all the castle staff at once during a meeting and ensuring that everyone would have enough space if a large crowd of petitioners wanted to take their turn speaking with the king. Though never explicitly used for that purpose just yet, the audience chamber could also double as bunker for the castle staff and residents of Disney Town during an extreme emergency, such as an invading army of monsters. Large cylindrical pillars stood in dotted rows on either side of the chamber, a small divide between each one in line. On the opposite end of the hall and directly behind the king's golden throne, a large crimson flag fell down from the ceiling. It was decorated with a large obsidian colored copy of the king's seal.

Standing on short square-shaped pedestals and inserted in large rectangular cutouts on the far wall while being positioned so they were slightly behind and to the sides of blue dais were two large stone statues. The one to Donald's left depicted the court magician himself dressed in one of his more ancient outfits. The statue was holding up a plain looking staff roughly shaped like a question mark. The statue on Donald's right depicted Goofy dressed in ancient roman style armor. A heart shaped shield was held up by the statue's left hand, the front of the object decorated with the king's seal.

Focusing his gaze on the statue of himself, Donald could not help but smirk slightly when he saw it. To this day he found it to be a fitting description of himself. The statue carried just the right amount of pride and mystery in its design. The cone shaped hat falling over his eyes was a nice touch. The only problem he had with it was that his statue was barely half the size of Goofy's. That difference might have been based on the actual differences in size between them in real but the royal magician couldn't help but sometimes feel like the sculptors were saying Goofy was more important and trustworthy than him.

Closing his eyes, Donald turned his head back towards the throne and flexed his fingers to calm his slightly aggravated mind down. His king was likely sitting there and patiently waiting for him, as was custom during these morning meetings. Believing himself mentally prepared for this, Donald called out to his king while walking across the remaining distance with his eyes closed.

"Good morning, your majesty," he loudly said to the only other person supposed to be in these chambers right now. Opening his eyes, Donald continued speaking without giving the king a chance to return his greetings just yet. "It's nice to see you this morn – WHAT!"

Freezing in place with wide eyes, Donald stared at the long golden throne that was designed to possess a very narrow width and a long high back. It was designed to resemble a golden armchair and it carried a rounded out copy of the king's symbol, also golden in color, on its head.

What caused Donald to cut himself off in mid-speech with a loud scream was the fact that the chair was currently missing something very important. Namely, his king.

The king of Disney Castle was nowhere in sight.

Not comprehending what he was seeing, the royal magician could only stare at the sight with wide blue eyes. His king was _always_ here at this time of day, patiently waiting for Donald to arrive so they could discuss their long term plans and what needed to be done on this specific day. He was most certainly never late to these meetings. What was going on here?

Fearing the worst, the anthropomorphic duck started to think up a number of wild possibilities to explain this strange sight. _'Has something happened to the king? Is he ill? Was he poisoned? Who would do that? How did they get past the guards? Was he kidnapped? How did no one notice? Is the queen alright? Has she been kidnapped too? Was Daisy kidnapped?!'_

Before Donald's mind could overload and meltdown inside his skull, the spell caster saw someone step out from behind the golden throne and appear directly to the left of it. Sighing with relief, the royal magician closed his eyes without getting a good look at the figure and thought it was his king.

' _So it was a prank this whole time,'_ Donald thought to himself while lowering his head and arms, believing that his friend had hid himself behind the golden throne in order to give the talking duck a scare. While his majesty was more serious than Goofy and didn't slack of as much, he could be rather mischievous and playful as well. It was a part of the charm that drew so many people to him. 'Not funny, your majesty. Not funny at all.'

Lifting up his head, Donald opened his eyes and prepared to give his king a lecture about proper conduct. He froze slightly, his right arm raised and forefinger directly beside his partially opened bill when he got a good look at the figure that had just stepped out from behind the throne.

That was not the king standing there on the blue platform. The king was not much taller than Donald himself and he most certainly did not walk around on all fours. He was also not a dog with short yellow fur and three toed paws. Said dog was in possession of a round button nose, long droopy ears, and a long thin tail with a matching obsidian coloring. The creature also possessed large closely set oval-shaped eyes and a small round bump on the back of his head. A wide emerald collar hung loosely around his thin neck.

"Pluto?" Donald called out to the animal while identifying him by name. The wizard was surprised to see the king's dog and loyal companion here of all places and, barring Donald, all by himself at that. While the king did allow him leave to walk around the castle as he pleased, Pluto rarely entered the audience chamber without being in his majesty's company. So where was the king?

"What are you doing here all alone?" Donald asked the dog, despite knowing the animal could not verbally respond to the question. He started walking across the short distance remaining between him and the raised dais, a small part of him wondering if his king was still hiding behind his throne.

The yellow furred dog decided to meet the wizard halfway and slowly walked towards him on all fours. As he came closer, Donald realized that the king's loyal companion was holding a very thin object between his jaws. As they got closer towards each other, Donald saw that it was a thin envelope with a pale green coloring. It was sealed a small piece of dark green wax in the shape of the king's seal. As Pluto came to a stop before and promptly set down on his hind legs, he raised his head in a clear gesture for the wizard to take the letter.

"For me?" Donald asked him just to be sure, a skeptical tone to his voice. All he received was a sharp nod before Pluto leaned slightly closer to him. Still feeling a little confused, the white feathered duck grasped the letter with his right hand and absent mindedly rubbed the back of Pluto's head as he pulled it out of the dog's mouth.

Holding the innocent looking envelope up to his face, Donald frowned slightly as he looked upon it. He thought to himself, _'Guess I better take a look.'_

Ignoring Pluto for now, the spell caster broke the wax piece by snapping it between his left thumb and forefinger. Quickly unfolding the letter, he found a folded piece of paper inside. Pulling it out of the envelope with his left hand, Donald carefully unfolded it with that same hand while crumbling the now broken envelope into a small ball in his right hand. Pressing the ball of paper against the back of the parchment as he held it up to his face with both hands, Donald slowly began to read the letter.

It didn't take him long to recognize the king's personal hand writing style as his eyes moved from left to right over and over again, scrolling down one sentence at a time. Fear started to swell in his breast while he read what the parchment, a letter addressed to him, contained. Coming to the end, Donald rapidly blinked several times and tried to calm down his racing heartbeat.

Deciding it would probably help if he read the paper from the top once more. Donald carefully began to do so. Unfortunately for the duck, reading it a second time dispelled the notion that he must have interpreted several words. As he began to understand just what had been written here, the royal magician found it impossible to contain his rising horror.

' _Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,'_ he thought to himself, the soundless denial repeating itself over and over again in his head as he lowered the gesture and looked up at the golden throne with unseeing eyes.

A few seconds later, a loud scream burst out of his yellow-orange bill. Turning sharply in place, Donald proceeded to run out of the audience chamber as quickly as his short legs could take. Which, when the movements were fueled by terror, could in fact be quite fast. Somehow holding onto the parchment with his left hand without noticing he was doing so, he ran across the carpet and left a confused looking Pluto to stare at him as he did so.

Still screaming his head off, Donald burst into the hallway outside the audience chamber and started running down the length of the corridor. He was absolutely lucky there was no one around to witness his sudden panic attack, less it cause widespread hysteria and confusion amongst the castle's residents. The sight of an utterly terrified court magician would have caused many to wonder if something terrible had happened and worry that the castle was in some sort of danger.

Taking a sharp turn to the right the moment he reached the staircase leading to the royal gardens, Donald stopped screaming as he leaped down the steps. He jumped them three at a time in order to get to his new destination as soon as possible. Barreled into the closed doors at the bottom of the stairs, he forced them open with his sheer momentum and nearly lost his hold on the parchment in his left hand as he did so. Heedless of this, Donald continued to run across the gardens as if his life depended on it. He reached his target in record time.

Coming to a halt before the still sleeping captain of the royal knights, Donald held his fists near his head as he leaped up and down slightly in place. Looking straight at the anthropomorphic dog, Donald yelled, "Wake up, Goofy! Wake up! This is serious!"

To the royal magician's absolute frustration all he received in response to his demands was a loud carefree yawn. The overly tall palooka hadn't heard a word he had just said to him.

More than twice as tall as the royal magician, Goofy was an extremely thin anthropomorphic dog with black fur, long arms and droopy ears. He actually looked a lot like Pluto, something Goofy found rather funny whenever someone brought it up to him. Unlike Pluto, Goofy's long mouth was furless and instead covered in fair skin decorated with several small freckles. He also had two large square shaped bucked teeth sprouting from his upper jaw. Three small tuffs of hair sprouted from his forehead and, like Donald, his hands were equipped with a single thumb and three fingers respectively.

Despite his position as captain of the royal knights, Goofy wasn't entirely covered in armor. His left arm was almost completely covered in it though. It housed several metal pieces of differing sizes which consisted of a small steel pauldron resting on top of his shoulder, a metal armlet wrapped around his upper arm, a thick cylindrical shaped gauntlet that covered his forearm, and a metal glove over his hand. In contrast, his right arm possessed only a metal armlet wrapped around its upper arm and his right hand was covered by a white glove. A metal hat resembling a helmet designed for a person with a small beak-like head and a long neck somehow remained attached to his head despite how Goofy was currently lying down on his back. It was decorated with a curved blade sprouting out of the top in a manner resembling a curved crest.

Goofy's feet were also covered in large metal boots that were stretched slightly longer than was necessary for the sleeping captain, with the toe section curling upwards slightly. His torso was absent of any sort of armor besides an overly thick metal belt wrapped tightly around his waist. Two blue straps were wrapped over a good portion the belt, covering the sides and back while leaving the front bare. Goofy's legs were encased in baggy orange pants with a noticeable seam running down the front of each leg. The bottom of his leggings were black in color and a rather thick gold line divided the dark color from the orange. Goofy also wore a sleeveless orange shirt with a high yellow collar. An oblong blue piece of clothing rested on the right half of his chest and was held in place by a long black strap running horizontally beneath his ribcage. The strap was attached to the blue cloth by a small star shaped golden pin located on the cloth's lower right corner.

Unable and unwilling to wait for his colleague to wake up on his own right now, Donald glared at him with obvious anger in his eyes. Quacking loudly, the anthropomorphic duck lifted his right hand and pointed the attached forefinger towards the sky. An instant later, despite there not being a single cloud in the sky, a bolt of lightning descended from above in answer to the spell caster's silent command and it struck the dozing knight in the gut. The very second he was hit by the falling mass of electricity, Goofy's eyes snapped open as a painful yowl erupted from his mouth. Without using his arms and legs, his tall body leaped into the air as he cried out with his limbs stretched out as far as they could go.

The lightning bolt faded to nothing as quickly as it arrived. When it did so, Donald watched with an expression of extreme impatience on his face as Goofy crashed back down onto the grass. None the worse for wear despite the sudden attack, the captain of the royal knights shook his head from side to side with closed eyelids once again covering his eyes. Once he was done with that, he rose into a sitting position. After taking a moment to rub his still closed eyelids with his right arm, Goofy reopened his eyes and took in his surroundings. Turning his head to the right first, Goofy did not see Donald until he looked to his left instead.

Once he laid eyes on his colleague, a wide smile broke out on his face. Raising his armor covered left arm in greeting, he cheerfully said, "Hey there, Donald. Good morning."

Shaking his head from side to side, Donald leaned forward and held his hands out in front of him. Instead of returning the greeting, the royal magician loudly announced, "We've got a problem, Goofy. A big one."

Catching sight of the open paper still in his left hand, Donald quickly leaned back and carefully rolled it up with both hands. Goofy watched him do so with a confused expression on his face. His head was tilted slightly to the right while the royal magician turned his own head from left to right, checking to see if there was anyone else around while he turned the parchment into a closed scroll. Once it was wound into a proper form, Donald leaned towards Goofy again.

Completely forgetting to look directly behind him while checking to make sure the two of them were still alone in the gardens, he held up his right hand to the side of his bill. His voice almost a whisper now, he said, "But don't tell anyone."

His statement seemed to confuse Goofy, as he hummed softly to himself. To Donald's surprise, he didn't quite seem to get what the shorter figure was trying to tell him because the next thing he said was, "Queen Minnie?"

Placing his fists on his hips, and being careful not to badly crumple the paper he was still holding in his left hand as he did, Donald shook his head from side to side with eyes closed. Tilting his head back and pointing his bill towards the sky, he sharply announced, "Not even the queen."

Gulping slightly, the captain seemed shocked by what his friend had just said to him. He rather hesitantly proposed another person's name. "Daisy?"

"NOOOOOO," Donald shrieked, leaning forward and looking like he was going to grab Goofy by the neck with both hands as he did so. His bill, and the rest of his head, actually vibrated slightly in place from the force of his scream.

Regaining his composure, Donald took a deep breath to calm himself down before he once again brought his right hand up to the side of his yellow-orange bill. The tip of beak almost directly against Goofy's left ear, the court magician lowered his voice to a near whisper once more and said, "Its top secret."

To Donald's frustration, Goofy didn't appear to be paying attention to him or look like he heard a word the spell caster had just said to him. Openly looking over his shorter friend's right shoulder now, the semi-armored knight waved his right hand in greeting and casually called out to someone behind the spell caster.

"Oh, good morning ladies."

As soon as he heard those words come out of Goofy's mouth, Donald felt a terrible chill run down his spine. He momentarily froze in place, his right hand stuck in mid-swing as it returned hang beside his waist. With wide eyes Donald stared at Goofy, unable to believe what he had just said. It was only at that moment that he finally took notice of the fact that the smiling palooka was looking past him. Had he been doing so this entire time?

"What?!" the spell caster nervously asked himself, silently praying he had misheard his friend just now. Surely he was addressing some other ladies who just happened to stumble upon the two of them?

Swallowing thickly, Donald turned slightly in place so he could look behind him. To his horror, he found himself looking at that the two residents of Disney Castle he most wanted to avoid bumping into right now. And they were currently standing only a short distance away from him, beneath the half-donut shaped sculpture at the base of the hill.

Queen Minnie of Disney Castle and Daisy, her loyal lady-in-waiting and Donald's very special sweetheart.

Like Donald, Daisy was an anthropomorphized duck. She also possessed white plumage and a yellow-orange bill. Unlike Donald however, Daisy has light blue eyes that she stylized with long eyelashes and lavender eye shadow. Today, she was wearing an ornate, yet sleeveless, and largely violet colored ball gown that was stylized with a high collar and a white lace-like column of buttons going down the front. The abdomen section of the dress is periwinkle in color and is kept separate from the violet coloring on the dresses' back and collar by a curving U-shaped line of downwards pointing tan colored triangles. Her skirts, which completely hid her tail and legs from view, possessed a similar color scheme being violet around her waist and periwinkle on the bottom. A wavy white line separated the two colors. Due to a small opening at the front of her skirts, one could see that Daisy was wearing another set of skirts underneath the first one. It was pleated by design and red in color. Resting on her head was a small golden tiara with a sapphire set in its front. Daisy also wore light pink gloves that reached up to her elbows while her hands each possessed a single thumb and three fingers respectively.

Unlike Daisy and Donald, Queen Minnie was an anthropomorphic mouse with black fur and large round ears resting on her head. Slightly taller than Daisy, she had very small oval shaped eyes with three long eye lashes attached to each of them and an obsidian nose. Like Goofy, there was no fur located on her face, exposing her fair skin. Nestled between her ears was a small tiara with a ruby shaped like the king's emblem set in the front.

Like her lady-in-waiting, the queen was also dressed in a ball gown. Possessing small ball-shaped sleeves that only covered her shoulders, the top of the gown was pink with a red lining. Flower-like red patterns rested inside small pink circles that decorated the bottom of that section. Around her legs, she currently wore two sets of skirts. The first did not quite reach the ground and was primarily salmon colored before fading to white at the ends. Underneath it, the queen wore slightly longer skirts that possessed a pleated design and warm red color. Her dress was decorated with a large red bow resting on the back. It was tied around her waist and gave her the appearance of possessing fluffy fairy wings when looked at from certain angles. To complete her outfit, the queen wore white gloves that covered both of her hands and forearms.

Standing slightly behind the queen's left shoulder, Daisy proceeded to rather loudly clear her throat while placing her gloved hands on her hips. She had a very expectant look on her face as she glared at Donald, the expression on her face eliminating any chance in Donald's mind that the two ladies had not overheard anything the male duck had just said to Goofy. In direct contrast to her lady-in-waiting, Queen Minnie merely cocked her head slightly to the right with a kind smile plastered on her face. She looked to be in a curious mood and didn't appear to have any inclination to leave any time soon.

The royal magician couldn't tell which of the two ladies he found to be more terrifying at the present moment. But having been seen by the pair of them, there was only one thing Donald could do right now in the face of what was likely to be a royal inquisition.

He laughed. Quite loudly in fact.

He tried to convince himself he didn't sound as nervous as he currently felt.

He failed.

* * *

 **And cut.**

 **This chapter was an even bigger pain to write than the last one. So many character descriptions... maybe I should cut down on them slightly, like I did for the islands and Disney Castle.**

 **I think some people are going to be upset I had Sora lose the fight against Riku but he was a pretty difficult mini-boss at this stage in KH1 and it was implied by other characters throughout the prologue that Riku was tougher than Sora. Veterans of the game will likely agree with me if I say that hit and run tactics are the best way to take Riku down at this stage. I actually remember that I lost my very first attempt at Riku here by falling off the edge of the island :)**

 **The entire fight scene also went three different rewrites. The first time I wrote it, I actually made it so that Riku won without Sora managing to land a single hit on him. I decided that was simply too much and rewrote some portions of the fight to give Sora some better footing. When I took a look through what I wrote once I was finished, I felt that I gave Sora the personality of someone like Ichigo Kurosaki from BLEACH or Nero from Devil May Cry by mistake due to the dialogue so I rewrote it again to make him seem more like his canon self. I am a little worried that the transition to Sora's conversation with Riku and Kairi fell a little flat. I am starting to feel like talks between characters isn't my strong point at this time. Ah well, fanfiction is a good way to practice, which is probably what I need right now.**

 **Hope I did Donald's personality justice while going through his portion of the chapter. As for the flashback with Selphie, she did in canon have a small optional cutscene where she talked to Sora about the paopu fruit. I simply changed when and where it took part for my story. She will be making her first true appearance in Kingdom Hearts - Awakened Fate next chapter. I should probably tell you all that I am thinking about skipping the race between Riku and Sora but I haven't made up my mind at this time.**

 **Anyway, leave a review and let me know if you want me to include or not include OC worlds after all. Suggestions, within the above parameters, are welcome!**


	7. Chapter 06

**Hello folks. Here is the next chapter for Kingdom Hearts - Awakened Fate.**

 **I know I am a day late but I lost two days due to writers block over how to start this chapter and a genuine lack of desire to write another interlude chapter right now. I also lost my entire Sunday due to four things:**

 **a) waking up very early to spend several hours driving to Whistler Mountain**

 **b) spending the rest of my morning to an hour past noon skiing on said mountain**

 **c) spending the next few hours driving back home through heavy traffic**

 **d) getting pulled into a short movie marathon by the family**

 **e) being so tired by the end of the day's events that I just crashed without having any time to proof read this chapter**

 **Anyway, like I said, this is another interlude chapter. As promised, we get cameos from a certain trio of Final Fantasy characters and our first look at a certain big bad. Hope I did his first meeting with Sora justice. A** **lso, I removed the the two wooden towers and the golden star in the second section of the Destiny Islands. They will not be appearing here in my story due to having no relevance to the plot.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the any characters or other creations that are a part of the Final Fantasy franchise, the Kingdom Hearts franchise, the Disney Franchise, or the Fire Emblem franchise. This story was created solely for the express purpose of providing entertainment for fun and the chance to improve my abilities as a writer.**

* * *

Kingdom Hearts – Awakened Fate

Chapter 06 – An Ominous Stranger

 **The Next Day,**

 **The Destiny Islands, Early Morning**

Heaving from the slight effort it took to complete the action, Sora finished turning his rowboat in a full circle on the ocean's shimmering surface. Repeatedly leaning forward and back at a casual pace, the spiky haired teen moved his arms in tandem with the motion and rowed towards the larger play island's small dock. The flat rectangular-shaped heads of the two wooden paddles Sora was holding onto were constantly vanishing beneath the waves, only to resurface a few moments after they had done so every time.

Looking over his right shoulder after striking the ocean's surface seven times with the long oars, the red and black clothed boy discovered that he was about to reach his destination. He noticed that there were currently five rowboats already hooked to the small pier. The current positioning of the five vessels caused them to form a slightly broken line against the dock's western facing flank, the tips of their noses almost pressed up against the small legs of the larger wooden structure. Three of them were resting side by side, with the first boat positioned directly against the dock's far right corner. There was an empty space big enough for Sora's vessel to slip in between the last one in this short line and the fourth rowboat already attached to the dock. The fifth rowboat was directly past the fourth, their flanks nearly pressed against each other.

The small crafts were all kept in place through the usage of a single light brown rope. Possessing rather short lengths, one end of each rope was tied around a small iron cap located between the driver's seat and the nose of each vessel. Meanwhile, the second end of each coil of rope was tightly wrapped around one of the dock's wooden legs. Sora could also see the tips of two paddles poking over the driver seats of each vessel, their heads likely resting in front of the sole passenger seat located at the very back of each boat.

Rather than attempt to fill the empty space dividing the line of small boats in two, Sora instead pushed his rowboat directly to the head of the pier. He felt it would easier to stop there. Bringing an end to his rowing as soon as he reached his destination, the red and black clothed boy released the wooden paddles he was using and left them in their rowlocks. The rectangular heads of both objects soon vanished underneath the water as his vessel came to a slow stop before the wooden dock.

Ignoring this, Sora twisted slightly in his seat and reached behind it with his right hand. Feeling but not seeing his fingers wrap themselves around the loose end of his own coil of rope, the spiky haired teen carefully climbed out of his seat. He dropped down to his left knee directly in front of the square shaped chair, tugging the coil of rope towards himself as he did so. Facing the pier and the island behind it, Sora leaned forward and used both hands to tie the length of rope to the wooden post directly beneath the dock's far left corner. He made sure the noose felt nice and tight before finally letting go of the cord. Just to be safe though, Sora tugged on both ends of the line with his right hand, one after the other to make sure the rope was secure.

Not finding any issues with the thick cord, the spiky haired teen let loose a soft grunt of approval before leaning towards the paddle directly in front of him. Collecting the thing by grasping its wooden shaft with both hands, Sora slowly pulled it out of its rowlock and set it down inside the boat. Placing the large head of the oar against the base of rowboat's only passenger seat, Sora allowed the item to diagonally rest over his own chair. Keeping himself in a crouch stance the entire time, the red and black clothed boy slowly turned himself around and used both hands to pull the second paddle out of its rowlock. He set it down in the exact same manner as the first one, only placing it on the opposite side of his body and pushing it closer to the boat's flank so he would have a bit more room to move. Once he let go of this one, Sora decided to nudge the other paddle closer to its own flank and turned around slightly to perform the act with his left hand alone.

His work done after that, the spiky haired teen thought to himself, ' _Now to go find Riku and Kairi.'_

Slowing pulling himself up to his full height, Sora came to stand directly in the middle of his rowboat. As with his previous movements, he was extra slow and careful, wanting to avoid rocking the small boat too much while he straightened his posture. The spiky haired teen had no desire to accidentally fall off the edge of the vessel and take a swim in the ocean today. If he had any desire to come into physical contact with salt water, Sora would have brought swimming trunks instead of his usual attire.

After placing both hands on his hips while pushing his shoulders towards the dock, Sora closed his eyes and threw his head back as a loud yawn erupted from his mouth. He silently told himself, _'The sooner we get started on it, the sooner we are done looking for supplies.'_

Truthfully, there were so many other things Sora would rather be doing today instead of scavenging for food to eat during the upcoming voyage across the ocean. The young islander couldn't help but feel like this was a waste of time, despite acknowledging the necessity of bringing supplies with them. He wasn't fond of the idea of starving to death before he and his friends reached a new island, wherever it may be located. Hopefully they will collect enough food today to ensure they will make it there without issue. There was an unfortunate limit to the amount of baggage the raft could carry after all, which constrained just how much food and water the three friends were going to be able to bring along with them on their voyage.

"In the end, our journey is going to boil down to whether we will run out food first or reach a new world before then," was how Riku had once succinctly summarized their trip into the unknown. While a rather depressing thought that threatened to destroy the novelty of going on a voyage across the ocean, neither Sora nor Kairi could come up with a good reproach for that pessimistic statement.

Opening his eyes while setting his head and shoulders back to their normal positions, Sora took a moment to look out at the ocean before him and the sky looming over top of it. Much like how it was during the previous day, the weather was bright and sunny now. There actually seemed to be even fewer clouds in the sky today when compared to yesterday in Sora's humble opinion. The water seemed to shimmer under the bright sunlight and its blue coloring looked very similar to the cerulean hue adorning the sky right now. Another yawn broke out of Sora's mouth as he looked at the familiar but still beautiful sight, the red and black clothed teen instinctively covering his open mouth with his left hand during the exhalation of air.

It was only after the yawn had faded away that Sora pulled his hand away from his face. He then carefully turned himself around and faced the pier. Since the wooden platform was a little too high for him to just start walking across it right away, the spiky haired teen carefully crouched down before leaping through the air. The sudden motion caused the young islander's rowboat to shake rather violently in the water but the rope binding it to the pier held firm and kept it from wandering too far away from its resting spot. Not paying any attention to this, Sora landed in a slight crouch with both his feet pressed down on the dock alongside his left hand. After pulling himself back to his full height, the spiky haired teen immediately started walking down the length of the small dock. He moved at a casual pace but did not spare his rowboat a single backwards glance while it moved listlessly in the ocean.

Turning his head so he could look to the right while he moved, Sora's right eyebrow climbed up his forehead slightly when he soon caught sight of Selphie talking to a rather tall young man with orange colored hair. The two islanders were only a short distance away from Sora's current location. Instead of standing directly on the sands, the two of them had placed themselves on the slightly raised ground that acted as a borderline between the southern beach and the rest of the larger play island. The large hill connected to the smaller play island through a wooden bridge was a part of that borderline. The earthen juncture also doubled as a natural blockade, one that kept the warm grains of sand on the beach from coming into contact with the island's small lake. There was only one lake on this entire island and it was positioned directly past Selphie's current location. A rather thin looking waterfall was located on the other side of that circular body of water, constantly bringing the lake a small amount of fresh water as it ran down the island's sole mountain.

The mountain itself was a large slab of dark brown rock that covered much of the island. Its sides were far too steep to climb and it almost divided the entire island in two due to its great width, separating north from south. The wooden wall and located past the nearby cliff and the bridge attached to it acted as a more fragile extension of the mountain, completing the divide. Large shrubs composed of giant leaves made of differing shades of green covered the top of the mountain, obscuring its full shape from view. There was currently only one thing on the island that surpassed the mountain it height. Standing directly to the right of the lake was an utterly massive tree whose roots alone dwarfed Sora in size. Its wide trunk was a healthy shade of brown and its large leaves were bright green in color.

' _I wonder what those two are doing here today,'_ Sora thought to himself, silently observing Selphie and her friend. Or rather, their friend because Sora was also on good terms with the other boy, who he recognized as Wakka. The spiky haired teen continued looking towards the pair after he had walked up the small ramp on the rear end of the dock and took his first step onto solid ground.

Seeing as how his current path would ultimately take him towards his fellow islanders, the red and black clothed boy saw nothing wrong with taking a moment to have a quick chat with the two of them before he met up with Riku and Kairi. His closest friends likely wouldn't mind the delay as long as he didn't take up too much time. With that in mind, Sora moved towards Selphie and Wakka with a small smile on his face.

Since Selphie's back was currently facing him, it was Wakka who first saw the spiky haired teen coming towards the two of them. Lifting his head slightly and looking over the top of Selphie's head, a wide smile appeared on the taller teen's face as soon as he spotted the red and black clothed boy. With a rather large white and blue ball currently tucked under his left arm, the orange haired young man waved his right arm in greeting. The action clearly startled Selphie because she flinched slightly in place and took a step back, moving slightly away from Wakka and closer to Sora. Before she had a chance to say anything to her companion, the young man opened his mouth to say something himself.

"Hey, what's happening, man?" the orange haired boy loudly called out to Sora, sounding rather happy as he did so. Wakka's voice had a slight accent that wasn't very common amongst the populace of Destiny Islands and it would occasionally cause some people to have difficulties understanding what he was saying. Fortunately for Sora, he was never one of those people.

Blinking up at their mutual friend, Selphie turned around and looked back at Sora over her right shoulder. A wide beaming smile broke out on the brown haired girl's face as soon as her eyes found the spiky haired teen, who was currently returning the taller boy's wave with his own right arm. Lowering the limb to the side of his body a moment later, Sora soon came to stand directly before his fellow islanders. Just before the spiky haired teen came to a stop, Selphie quickly took several steps back in order to avoid getting stuck between the two boys.

Seemingly unaware of this act on her part, said boys looked towards one another with matching grins on their faces. They briefly exchanged a fist bump with their rights. It was only once they were done with that did Sora speak up.

"Hey, Wakka. Still carrying your favorite ball I see," Sora greeted his friend, nodding his head towards the large sphere tucked under the fifteen year old teen's left arm. Primarily white in color, it was designed to have a large spread of dark blue paint running across its width in a wild and unorganized manner. It almost looked like a splash of water trying to curl around and then consume the whole sphere. "You ever get tired of doing that?"

His innocent question brought a cocky smirk to the older boy's face. Slightly taller than Riku in terms of height, Wakka was in possession of a similarly strong build, tanned skin, and small brown eyes. He had a blue headband wrapped around his forehead, with the cloth tied into a small knot at the back of his head. His bright orange hair was rather short, with two small bangs falling in front of his ears. The hair strands on the back of his head were longer than most of those on top and their tips nearly reached his shoulder line as they crawled down the back of Wakka's neck. Multiple hair strands directly above his forehead were nearly three times the length of those surrounding them. These formed a rather fragile looking backwards curling horn shape on top of the taller teen's head.

Alongside his bandana, Wakka currently wore a sleeveless pale yellow, almost white, tank top and baggy dark yellow pants. His shirt was decorated with thin black outlines on its edges and collar. White laces were attached to the front section of the collar, which stressed halfway down Wakka's chest, and they were currently left undone. The tips of both cords were decorated with two small beads, the first bead on each pair being light green in color while the second one was bright yellow. Wakka's pants had two small pockets, with one on each side of his waist. The pants legs stopped descending halfway down Wakka's lower legs instead of extending all the way to his ankles. Both of his pants legs were stylized on the front with two black straps crossing over each other to form a large X. The ends of each strap housed a dark blue arrowhead with a white pin in the center holding them in place on the pants leg. If Wakka was wearing any sort of belt, it was currently hidden from view behind the lower rim of his top, which was not tucked into his leggings at the moment.

Wakka's footwear consisted of simple green sandals with the straps designed to loosely resemble folded green leaves. One each foot, two of these straps ran over the middle of his feet while a small one was curling around the base of his big toes. The taller boy also wore blue wristbands on his arms and their coloring was the exact same shade of blue as his headband. Unlike most people Sora knew, the older boy had earrings. Wakka's resembled small round beads resembling oyster pearls and he had one attached to both of his earlobes.

After tilting his head back slightly while a playful scoff burst out of his mouth, Wakka lightly shook his head from side to side. Focusing his gaze back on Sora once he was done with the motion, the taller boy said, "Nah, man. I need to be ready in case someone decides they wanna have some fun. Speaking of which, ya'h up for a round?"

The orange haired boy put extra emphasis on this question by lifting up his ball and holding it directly before his stomach while he spoke. As soon as he was done speaking, Wakka leaned towards Sora and slammed his right palm against the sphere. It almost looked like the taller teen was trying to see if he could make the ball pop between his hands while he pressed both appendages against opposite sides of the round item. A wide challenging smirk was locked on Wakka's face as he looked Sora in the eyes, completing the look. Standing next to the two boys, Selphie rolled her eyes in exasperation and then placed her right hand against her forehead while she lowered her head forward by a small margin.

His right eyebrow climbing slightly up his forehead before he spoke, Sora had a confused tone when he asked the taller boy, "You want to play blitzball, right?"

It was a popular ball game on the Destiny Islands and Wakka's favorite sport. Tidus was the only person Sora knew who liked blitzball just as much as the orange haired boy. The game involved two teams of players facing off against each other while competing for control of a single ball. Physical contact of any sort between opposing players, especially violence, was strictly prohibited. Each team had a goal on opposite ends of the playing field and the objective of the game was to get the blitzball into the opposing team's goal. Doing so awarded your team with score points and whichever group had the most score points when time ran out would win the game. Generally, blitzball was supposed to be between teams consisting of four or six people, but one on one matches were still possible.

"Nah, man," Wakka told Sora, an almost feral grin appearing on his face as he bared his teeth at Sora. "I meant the other thing we do around here. What do ya say?"

' _Oh, a fight,'_ Sora thought to himself, finally understanding where Wakka was going. The spiky haired teen felt a wide grin take shape on his face. He liked the idea of facing off against the older boy.

It had been a while since Sora and Wakka last went at each other so the spiky haired teen felt he could be excused for forgetting the older boy preferred to fight using a blitzball instead of a toy sword like most of the other kids on the Destiny Islands. It was a bit of an odd fighting style but Wakka had a pretty good throwing arm, decent reflexes, quick feet, and some skill in grappling and wrestling respectively so he was able to make it work. The orange haired boy didn't have the best winning streak compared to Riku and even Sora but he was still a decent challenge for the spiky haired teen all the same.

Of course, unlike Sora and Riku, Wakka had a pretty big weakness that practically every boy on the Destiny Islands knew about now. Despite his current physical appearance, the orange haired teen was born with a fairly soft skull. Sora recalled that during one of his matches with Riku, the first thing Wakka did at the start of the fight was throw his blitzball towards his opponent as hard as he could. The silver haired teen had simply whacked it in mid-air with his toy sword and sent the round object flying back at his opponent. Wakka had been unable to catch it in time and the blitzball had struck him right on the forehead. The orange haired teen was completely out of it before his body had even finished falling onto its back, bringing the match to an end while generating much laughter amongst the fight's small audience.

When he finally woke up a short time later, Wakka took the loss with good grace. However, his relatively happy mood vanished after the now fifteen year old boy had discovered that Tidus decided to doodle on his face with a black marker while he was out of it. The fact that none of the other boys, Sora and Riku included, had even halfheartedly tried to stop him only made it worse. Since that day, everyone Wakka fought with tried to repeat Riku's feat and score an easy win. It gave the orange haired teen plenty of chances to practice dodging and catching a flying blitzball. So far, only a few people had been able to succeed because Wakka had been on his guard ever since that day. Sora was one of them though he had only managed to do it three times so far.

"Really, Wakka?" Selphie called out to the taller boy before the spiky haired teen could give him any sort of verbal response. Both boys turned to look at her, cocking their heads to the side in an almost identical manner while she lowered her hand from her face. Lifting her gaze to look Wakka straight in the eye, the brown haired girl said, "It's been almost a week since we last saw him and the first thing you do is ask Sora if he is up for a fight? What is wrong with you?"

Wakka raised his right hand into the air beside him and simultaneously tucked his blitzball back underneath his left arm. With only a faint hint of exasperation in his voice, the orange haired boy looked back at the brown haired girl and said, "Come on, Selphie. Y'know that's how we do things around here, y'ah."

The other islander just looked him dead in the eyes with a very unimpressed expression locked on her face. Now that he was taking a good look at her, Sora could see that Selphie was currently wearing a rather short yellow dress with overall straps going over her shoulders and a large pocket on the front. She still had her favorite blue bead bracelet on her left wrist and she was wearing sandals instead of shoes on her feet. Her sandals were tan in color at the base and they possessed large dark brown belt-like straps that were wrapped over top of her feet.

After a few seconds of silently glaring at Wakka, Selphie turned her green eyes towards Sora. The red and black clothed boy flinched slightly at the sudden action and he expected their friend to start reprimanding him as well. To Sora's surprise, Selphie spoke to him with a much gentler tone of voice. She asked him, "We barely seem to see you, Riku, and Kairi these days, Sora. What are you guys up to?"

Caught off guard by the sudden change in topic, the spiky haired teen could not stop himself from taking an involuntary step back with his left foot. Noticing out of the corner of his eye that Wakka had also turn his gaze toward him with a curious look now planted on the older boy's face, Sora could only smile sheepishly at Selphie's innocent enquiry and scratch the back of his head with his left hand.

"Yeah, sorry about that Selphie. We've been rather busy working on a little project of ours," he told them, looking Selphie in the eyes as he spoke. He inwardly winced slightly at the slip up, not liking the fact that he had told the pair he was building something with his closest friends. He could only thank whatever higher power existed that neither Riku nor Kairi overheard what he just said.

Lowering his left hand back to his side, the spiky haired teen hoped the duo would not decide to further press the issue. While he agreed with Riku that the raft need to be kept a secret, mostly because their parents would definitely try to stop them from leaving the Destiny Islands, Sora didn't like the thought of lying to his friends and adoptive mother. He also had a very long way to go before he became a gifted fibber in his best friend's humble opinion. It was better for Sora and everyone involved if the subject just never came up during a conversation. It couldn't be a lie if nobody spoke about it after all.

Sadly, the spiky haired teen didn't get his wish this time. He resisted the urge to grimace when he saw Selphie frown again. It wasn't as bad as the frown she sent Wakka a moment ago but it was still a frown and it was clearly directed at Sora this time. There was a small mixture of confusion and frustration present in her emerald eyed gaze while she looked the spiky haired teen straight in the eye.

Wakka beat her to the punch though, reminding both of them that he was still present when he asked Sora, "Secret project? What sort of secret project?"

Wincing slightly at the openly curious tone in the older boy's voice, the spiky haired teen turned his head to the right and looked up at Wakka. As he met the other boy's brown eyes, Sora frantically tried to come up with a suitable cover story for what he and his friends were actually doing. He didn't want to tell either Selphie or Wakka about the raft. The orange haired boy was a bit of a blabber mouth who would probably be unable to stop himself from telling Tidus at the very least, given how close the two boys were. He would also likely insist on being allowed to accompany the trio on their journey. Sadly, Sora didn't think the raft had enough room for him too. Much less Wakka and Tidus both if the latter boy also decided he wanted to come along. On the other hand, Selphie would probably run back to town as soon as Sora's back was turned and tell his mother, along with the town mayor and Riku's parents, just what the red and black clothed boy and his two closest friends were up to. That would destroy any chance the three of them had of leaving the Destiny Islands any time soon.

' _Why didn't we bother to come up with some sort of cover story?_ ' was Sora's only thought at the moment. He couldn't recall ever discussing with Riku or Kairi what they should say if someone noticed that the three friends kept on disappearing and said person grew curious enough to enquire about what they were up to. Privately, the spiky haired boy blamed Riku for this. Contingency plans were supposed to be his specialty but he never bothered at any point to make any suggestions on what to say if something like this happened. Not that the spiky haired teen would probably remember them with how frantically his mind was racing right now. _'Think fast, Sora. Think fast. And say something before they get suspicious.'_

"Kairi's… aunt…," Sora started, trying not to sound too hesitant or scared while he spoke. It was extremely difficult and the spiky haired teen would not be surprised if he was sweating right now. If either Wakka or Selphie saw that he was they did not say anything. They simply stood in place, awaiting his answer to the older boy's question. "Her birthday is coming up… in a few weeks. So you see, Kairi… she wanted to get her a good present. She asked me and Riku for help because she couldn't decide what to buy. We decided it would be better if she built something herself… me and Riku have been helping her, pitching in when we can."

' _There. That should do it,'_ Sora thought to himself, barely suppressing the sigh of relief that wanted to erupt from his chest. He didn't think it was a good idea to keep talking right then. The spiky haired teen was slightly worried he would sound like he was rambling if he kept at it. _'Hopefully they bought what I said.'_

Focusing his gaze on Selphie, the red and black clothed boy was pleased to see his words were getting through to her. The notion that Kairi was making some sort of birthday gift for her adoptive aunt was met with silent approval from the brown haired girl, whose suspicious expression had turned into one of admiration. While not a romantic gesture since it wasn't being made for a boy, such a gift was still a sign that Kairi greatly cared for her adoptive aunt and the idea of giving someone a handmade gift for their birthday was something Selphie would definitely approve of. Just looking at how much the brown haired girl was resisting the urge to jump up and down in excitement was doing wonders for Sora's nerves.

Sadly, the spiky haired teen tensed up again when he looked up at Wakka's face. The orange haired teen didn't seem quite ready to accept the fabricated story himself just yet, as shown by how he was frowning slightly while he looked down at his red and black clothed friend. Catching Sora's gaze on him, Wakka started rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand while turning his gaze to the side.

"The birthday is a few weeks away, right? Why do it so early, man?" he pressed Sora, unable to look at the shorter teen as he did so. The red and black clothed boy had to fight the urge to take a fearful step back at the question. He knew such an act would give everything away.

"Well, you see…" Sora thought, twisting his eyes to the left while his mind raced inside his head. The spiky haired teen felt like he would panic if he looked at either Selphie or Wakka right now. He frantically searched for something to say while his mouth moved mostly on autopilot, speaking words he himself barely heard. "Starting early was actually… Riku's idea… He was worried that… if we waited too long we wouldn't be able to finish in time. We've never done… anything like this before… and we wanted to make sure we got it right… since it's a gift for Kairi's aunt."

Lowering his right hand back to the side of his torso, Wakka hummed in thought as he looked down at the shorter boy. He was no longer frowning but neither was he smiling at the moment. That only made the spiky haired teen think the taller boy was looking for holes in what he had just said. Honestly though, there was a small kernel of truth to what Sora had said. He, Riku, and Kairi hadn't actually been sure how long it was going to take them to complete the raft when they first started working on it and they had never tried building one before. Fortunately, their construction project went by a lot faster than any of them expected it would.

"What are you guys making?" Selphie suddenly asked Sora, sounding rather excited as she did so.

Turning to look at her location, Sora saw that she was leaning forward and holding her hands slightly below her chin. Her fingers curled slightly, almost causing her hands to turn into fists. The spiky haired boy found it easier to come up with an answer that particular question, which caused him to feel a small amount of relief.

Before the red and black clothed boy could respond to Selphie's question however, Wakka spoke up. Tossing his blitzball into his right hand, the orange haired boy asked Sora, "You guys need some more help with it, Sora?"

"Oh, I can help too," Selphie called out, sounding rather eager to do so. She was even standing on her left foot and leaning forward slightly while holding right hand up in the air. If he wasn't busy twitching slightly at Wakka's offer, the spiky haired teen might have found the sight of her like that rather funny. Either way, Sora ignored what Wakka said for now and forced himself to smile while looking at the brown haired girl.

"Sorry, can't tell you what we're working on," he told her honestly, his tone genuinely apologetic. Seeing the shorter girl pout at him after lowering her right arm and foot, the brown haired boy said, "It's supposed to be a _surprise_ birthday present, after all. Kairi made me and Riku swear we wouldn't say anything to anybody the moment we started working on it. She doesn't want to run the risk of ruining the surprise."

' _I'm not even supposed to be talking about this with you two right now,'_ Sora thought, privately regretting the decision to approach the pair. He didn't let the thought show on his face, much less say it aloud, and kept on smiling at Selphie. _'What am I going to tell Riku and Kairi?'_ the spiky haired teen asked himself, knowing he had to tell them about this at some point and dreading how they would react.

To Sora's immense relief, the words he just said to her seemed to mollify Selphie somewhat because her pout slowly faded away. The brown haired girl still wore a rather disappointed expression on her face however. Lowering her gaze towards the ground, she clenched her hands into soft fists and petulantly kicked at a non-existent rock with her right foot. Her actions didn't surprise Sora in the slightest. He knew that Selphie hated secrets and mysteries more than anything else on the Destiny Islands. It was probably only respect for Kairi's feelings that caused her to abstain from digging any further right now. The red and black clothed boy suspected the knowledge that she would still eventually learn what Kairi and her best friends were working on helped somewhat. Too bad the surprise wasn't going to be anything like what she probably suspected it was going to be.

Turning to Wakka so he could answer the taller boy's question now, Sora slightly raised his right hand into the air beside him with the palm turned towards the sky. He said, "We're actually almost done with it, Wakka. We should be finished by tomorrow. A few more adjustments and all that's left for us to do is wrap it up and put it somewhere safe. Thanks for the offer though."

The orange haired teen continued to look down at Sora without any expression on his face for a few moments. The silence lasted long enough for Sora to start wondering if the older boy was actually buying what he saw saying. He wondered if he let something slip but didn't know what or how. To the spiky haired teen's relief, Wakka broke the silence with a loud snort while he rolled his eyes in dismissal a moment.

"All right. If you're sure, man. Ya'h just let me know if ya'h change your mind," Wakka casually told him, turning his gaze towards the large tree looming above the three of them. As he did so, he tucked his blitzball under his right arm. Tapping the large sphere with the forefinger of his left hand, he looked down at Sora again. Grinning as he continued to tap the blitzball, Wakka set a condition for his silence. "But ya'h owe me a round when you're done. Understand?"

Sora barely managed to hold in a sigh of relief when he heard those words. He did however burst out laughing at the idea, finding the condition something Wakka would definitely make. "You're on," the red and black clothed boy told his friend, a smile forming on his face as he spoke.

He was still smiling when the two boys bumped fists again, with Wakka using his left hand instead of his right this time. The action caused Selphie to sigh loudly and shake her head in dismay where she stood. Unknown to either of his friends, Sora was mentally apologizing to Wakka at that very moment. The spiky haired teen was well aware that he would not be able to keep this particular promise, given his current plans. At the same time, he couldn't help but feel a little relieved that the orange haired boy had bought his cover story.

' _See, Riku, I actually can be a smooth talker when I need to be,'_ Sora thought to himself, feeling rather proud of what he pulled off despite its rather despicable nature. He recalled how the silver haired teen had once told him that he couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it. Given the string of losses Sora had been suffering against Riku lately, the red and black clothed boy was glad he had just proved his best friend wrong.

Deciding it was time to change the subject and bring this entire chat to a close, the red and black clothed boy put his left hand on his hip and said, "By the way, what are you guys doing today anyway?"

Selphie, having regained her usual cheerful nature at some point without Sora noticing, just shrugged her shoulders softly at the question. Waving her right hand in clear dismissal a moment later, she simply said, "Oh, I'm not staying here for much longer, Sora. I just came to get out of town and enjoy the fresh air for a bit. I think I might waste some time trying to see if I can find some nice seashells down at the beach while I'm here."

"Nice, good luck with that," Sora told her, nodding his head. Though his words caused Selphie to beam at him, the spiky haired teen knew that collecting things like sea shells wasn't one of his hobbies. He wasn't going to begrudge Selphie for occasionally indulging in it though. It wasn't his place or polite to do such a thing. Besides, the red and black clothed boy didn't like it when people mocked his own hobbies either.

Sora turned his gaze towards Wakka next. Before the spiky haired teen could even open his mouth, the older boy smirked down at him and said, "Me and Tidus, we're gonna do a little exploring today."

' _Exploring? Here?'_ the spiky haired teen thought to himself, more than a little surprised by what the orange haired boy had just said to him. This time he didn't bother trying to keep the surprise off his face and the expression he was making made Wakka laugh out loud. Even Selphie was giggling slightly, her shoulders shaking as she covered her mouth with the back of her right hand. Ignoring the noise his friends were making, Sora simply stared at Wakka in confusion while thinking, _'But we've already seen everything there is to see on these islands. What's left for you guys to explore?'_

For a split second, the spiky haired teen wondered if the two of them were planning on going to the northern side of the island. If they did that, they would definitely discover the raft and the possibility of such an event scared Sora. He instinctively clenched his hands into fists but didn't get the chance to press Wakka for answers just yet. His friend distracted him by raising his left hand and pointing it at something past Selphie with the attached forefinger fully outstretched. Both Sora and Selphie followed the direction of the limb and saw that Wakka was pointing towards a small hole in the mountain's steep cliff face. It was located directly between the main body of the massive tree and the small lake, with one of the latter's smaller roots reaching over top the hole to take a dip in the water. Large green flowers sprouted all over the upper edges of the hole, partially obscuring the opening and causing it seem smaller than it actually was.

"You know, to the secret place at the base of that tree," Wakka spoke up, drawing Sora's gaze back to him. The brown haired boy noticeably relaxed, unclenching his fists now that he better under stood Wakka's intentions. Neither Selphie nor Wakka noticed the change in his bearing since they weren't currently looking at the red and black clothed boy. "There's gotta be something there, ya?"

' _Honestly, Wakka… not much,'_ Sora thought to himself, turning his gaze back towards the opening. He had known what was back there since he was very little, having explored it for the first time alongside Riku shortly after Kairi had arrived on the Destiny Islands. _'I guess we never did getting around to showing it to you and Tidus.'_

Not that the two boys ever had any intention of doing so. When they were younger, the cave Wakka was pointing towards became their secret hideout. Except for one large object they had never been able to remove, it consisted of nothing more than rocks, dirt, and small roots. Kairi was the only other person Sora and Riku ever had shared the place with. Sora had invited Kairi inside one day without asking for Riku's opinion first and while the other boy never exploded in Sora's face over it, Riku hadn't talked to him for over a week when he first found out. The silver haired teen eventually came around and the three islanders were nearly inseparable ever since.

A small frown found its way onto Sora's face as he looked at the sight of that familiar opening. He couldn't help but wonder, _'When was the last time we spent any time there anyway?'_

The spiky haired teen didn't have a definite answer to the silent question but it definitely felt like a long time had passed since Sora last set foot in his old hideout. Maybe even several years had passed without him noticing because he kept finding other things to do with his time. He had a feeling that Kairi and Riku were in the same boat as him in this instance. At the same time, the red and black clothed boy wasn't nearly as upset by the thought of Wakka and Tidus intruding on his old hideout as he expected himself to be. Perhaps Sora had simply outgrown that small cave at some point without realizing it

On a slightly unrelated not, Sora wondered if Wakka could even get through that opening given how tall he was now. The possibility of witnessing a truly comedic sight almost made the red and black clothed boy want to stick around and witness it. However, he knew he had to get going. Sora still had to meet up with Riku and Kairi so they could start collecting supplies for tomorrow's journey. If he kept wasting time, they might end up having to delay the trip by another day. That was unacceptable to the spiky haired teen so he decided to end his conversations with Wakka and Selphie here.

"Well… good luck with that, Wakka. I need to get going," Sora spoke up, lightly clapping the taller boy on the shoulder with his right hand. Lowering his left arm back to his side, Wakka just turned his head towards Sora and grinned back at him in response.

"I guess we'll see you later then," said Selphie, her voice sounding somewhat despondent after she had turned around to look at Sora. The brown haired boy threw an apologetic look her way but she merely smiled in response to that expression. With a little more cheer in her voice, she added, "Don't be a stranger, all right."

To put extra emphasis on that last sentence, she crossed the distance between her and spiky haired teen. Leaning forward, she pressed her right forefinger against his chest and pinned his silver crown pendant in place with the small appendage. For some reason, the sight of her performing such an action caused Wakka to burst out laughing. A noticeable blush adorned Selphie's cheeks as she turned her head to give the older boy a rather cross look. Sora, for his part, couldn't stop himself from grinning at her.

"Don't worry, I won't," Sora told her, taking a couple of backwards steps as he spoke. Not bothering to watch Selphie lower her arm back to her side, the spiky haired teen turned around. He forced down the guilt he felt at telling the brown haired girl another lie.

Given what he was planning to do with Riku and Kairi tomorrow, it would probably be a long time before the spiky haired teen ever saw Selphie again. Or anyone from the Destiny Islands for that matter, his adoptive mother included. It wasn't until this moment that Sora realized he never bothered to think what going on a voyage would do to the friends and family he would be leaving behind. He found himself wondering if they would be angry and sad. Fortunately, the sudden thought process did not make the red and black clothed boy start to reconsider if going out to sea on the raft was a good idea, regardless of how guilty it made him feel inside. His thirst for adventure was simply too strong for him to suppress and Sora was convinced he could find his way back to the Destiny Islands whenever he had the urge to return.

Lifting his head up and looking straight ahead, Sora came to a stop on the edge of the upraised earth when he caught sight of a small figure off in the distance. This person, whoever they were, was currently standing on the smaller of the two play islands, positioned almost directly between the wooden bridge and the curved trunk of the paopu fruit bearing tree. They were rather close to the edge of the island's ceiling and seemed to be swinging some sort of long stick up and down repeatedly. The person was too far away for Sora to have the ability to discern if they were male or female but they appeared to have sandy brown hair on top of their head and they were wearing a short white top and black shorts.

Having a suspicion in regards to that person's identity, Sora lifted up his left hand and casually pointed his left forefinger in the figure's direction. Without looking over his shoulder, he asked Wakka and Selphie, "Is that Tidus over there, guys? Wakka said he was coming here earlier."

"Yeah, man. That's him," the orange haired teen answered, a faint undertone of amusement to his voice. Sora heard a loud sigh erupt from Selphie's mouth and he turned his head to look at the pair of them over his left shoulder. Wakka was looking in Tidus' direction with a wry smirk on his face. He said, "He's just getting some practice in before we go exploring."

"Practice? You mean training, right?" Sora asked the taller boy, turning his gaze back to Tidus' distant form. If that really was Tidus over there than that stick he was currently swinging was actually a thin wooded pole he had custom painted red. It was the slightly shorter boy's personal weapon. Sora had a feeling he used it precisely because he wanted to fight with something unique rather than constantly use one of the common toy swords available on the island. Well aware of how confident the other boy was in his skills, the spiky haired teen couldn't help but say, "That's rather unusual for him. He always seemed convinced that he is the best fighter on the Destiny Islands despite never beating Riku. He definitely thinks training is for losers. What brought this on?"

"Riku did, y'ah. Me and Tidus got here around the same time he did," Wakka told him. The orange haired boy didn't really need to say anymore after that, Sora having a good idea where he was going, but he kept at it. "Tidus challenged him to another fight as soon as he saw him, y'ah."

"Don't tell me. He lost," Sora deadpanned, his voice completely flat as he continued to look at the distant figure. Had he looked behind him in that moment, he would have seen Selphie turning her head slightly to the right while she rubbed the side of her neck with her right hand. Beside her, Wakka nodded his head several times.

"Yeah. He lost both the fight and the two rematches he requested after that," said the orange haired teen. Unable to help himself, Sora turned his upper body to the left and threw a flat stare at Wakka. The older boy just closed his eyes and shrugged his shoulders in a manner that silently asked Sora, "What can you do?"

' _Really, Tidus? Three beat downs in one day. What is wrong with you?'_ the red and black clothed boy thought to himself, turning his gaze to look back at the shorter teen once more. If the other islander had any idea that Sora was looking at him right now, he was too busy swinging his small pole to bother and say hello with a wave of his hand. Rubbing the back of his head with his right hand, Sora decided it didn't matter. He thought to himself, _'Whatever, man. I've wasted enough time here.'_

Once again determined to go find Riku and Kairi, both of whom were most likely on the northern side of the island right now, Sora took a moment to say farewell to Wakka and Selphie one more time. Turning his torso slightly to the right so he could look at them over his shoulder, the spiky haired teen waved his right hand slightly and said, "See you guys later. Riku and Kairi are going to get annoyed with me if I keep them waiting much longer."

Sora just caught Selphie reaching up to cover his mouth with her right hand as he turned himself to face forward again. He definitely heard her giggling at him though, even when Wakka said, "See ya'h later, man."

Their small conversation effectively brought to an end for good this time, Sora jumped onto the larger play island's southern beach. He could not help but sigh in contentment when his bare feet came into contact with the warm sands, finding the sensation such physical contact brought him quite soothing. It was one of the main reasons why he preferred to walk around bare foot. Not bothering to look back at Selphie and Wakka, he started on his way and walked across the beach.

He did raise his right arm in farewell again when he heard Selphie call out to him and said, "Take care, Sora. Say hi to Kairi for me."

After momentarily giving her a thumbs up with his upraised right hand, Sora brought that hand back to his side as he walked across the beach. He soon started to jog across the sands, wanting to feel the wind in his hair but not too motivated to go into a full run just yet. Besides, he only had to cover a short distance in order to reach the wooden door leading to the northern side of the island. The warm sands turned almost annoyingly cool to his bare feet when he crossed the section of the beach covered by the wooden bridge's shadow. Fortunately, it only took him a few steps to get out of that place. Turning to the left as soon as he had jogged past the steep cliff holding up half the bridge, Sora slowed his pace back to a casual walk once he had climbed up the small wooden ramp leading back to solid ground. Taking several steps forward, he reached the man-made wooden wall on the far eastern side of the island.

Stepping up to the windowless door set in said wall, Sora gently pushed it open with his right hand and stepped through the threshold without slowing down his space. His footsteps did come to a stop once he was through the doorway however and the spiky haired teen closed the door behind him with a backwards swish of his left hand. Taking in his current surroundings, the red and black clothed boy found himself standing on a small outcropping of solid earth with steep sides and a curved edge, the latter of which was outlined with grass and small flowers. The majority of the ground consisted of plain gravel.

Looking straight ahead, Sora could see a fairly tall cliff poking out of the mountain a good distance ahead of him. It had steep sides consisted solely of light grey stone and a rather rectangular shape, the earthen juncture pulling away from the nearby mountain in a manner reminiscent of a fully outstretched arm. Its top was slanted slightly due to its farthest edge being locked at a slightly higher elevation than the one closest to Sora. Its far edge also descended slightly while it reached out towards the sea, as if the further the hill pulled itself away from the mountain the more it was unable to bear its own weight. Much like the ground he was currently standing on, the top of that cliff consisted mostly of pale granite while its edges were outlined by green glass, with a loose scattering of bushes and flowers mixed in.

A wide wooden bridge once connected the two hills together but it had fallen into an extreme state of disrepair a long time ago. The adults on Destiny Islands had yet to bother to come and fix it. Sora wondered if any of them even knew what state it was currently in because of how rarely people bothered to come here nowadays. He certainly had never told his adoptive mother about it, having never seen a reason to bring it up during a conversation. Of the once pristine structure, only three disconnected segments of differing sizes presently remained standing in the rather shallow ocean water between the island's two earthen junctures. One piece was connected to each of the two hills while the third was standing in between them.

"There you are," a familiar voice called out to Sora as he looked at the first segment of the broken bridge, which happened to have a greater overall length than both of its counterparts put together. Turning his gaze to the left, the spiky haired teen saw Riku standing near the northern most edge of the small hill he was currently standing on. The older boy's arms were crossed over his chest and he was looking at Sora over his right shoulder. "About time you got here. I was beginning to think you weren't going to come today."

Sora simply shrugged his shoulders while lightly throwing his hands out to either side of his torso. He said, "Sorry about that, Riku. I got held up helping my mom with some stuff around our house. Is Kairi nearby?"

' _I'll tell him about Wakka and Selphie later,'_ Sora thought, silently swearing to himself he would do just that. Riku and Kairi did need to know about the cover story he just told the other two teens after all.

After nodding slightly in acceptance of Sora's apology, Riku turned his gaze back to the ocean. Sounding completely disinterested while he spoke, the silver haired boy told Sora, "She's was over by the raft the last time I saw her. Probably still there, waiting for us. It looked like she was working on some sort of trinket by herself."

"A trinket? What kind?" Sora asked, sounding slightly more curious than his best friend as he walked towards Riku. He soon came to stand directly beside the taller boy's left shoulder, only a single step remaining between the two of them as they looked out over the azure water together. Both of them were silently thinking about what lay beyond the horizon as they did so.

Riku just shrugged his shoulders at the question. The silver haired boy then uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on his hips. Still not taking his eyes away from the ocean, he said, "I'm not sure. I think it's supposed to be some sort of good luck charm. I think she is getting cold feet."

"Cold feet? Wait… you mean she's getting nervous?" Sora asked him, turning his head to look at Riku. The red and black clothed boy wore a slightly surprised expression on his face as he looked at his friend.

Nervous wasn't ordinarily a word he would use to describe Kairi after all. Despite her disinterest in fighting and other sort of competition, Sora was pretty sure she was one of the bravest people he had ever seen. One of the bravest and kindest, if he was being honest.

"A little bit," Riku admitted, finally turning his head in order to look Sora in the eyes. Catching the expression on the other boy's face, he closed his eyes and started shaking his head from side to side. Waving his left hand slightly between them, Riku said, "Relax Sora. It's nothing to be concerned about. She's not second guessing our decision to go on this journey."

The spiky haired teen couldn't help but let loose a small sigh of relief at those words from his best friend, the exhalation prompting a short bark of laughter to escape the older boy's throat. Slightly annoyed, Sora nudged him in the arm with his right elbow. Riku didn't even flinch, not that Sora expected him to with how little effort he had put into the sudden jab.

Crouching down slightly, Sora rested his elbows on his knees while he looked out at the ocean. He said, "I suppose I can understand that feeling. I guess a part of me can't help but question if this is all some sort of dream."

Humming to himself lightly, Riku proceeded to reach towards Sora's face with his left hand and give him a solid pinch on the right cheek. A small cry of pain erupted from the younger boy, drawn out of him by the unexpected action. Sora immediately swatted at Riku's arm with his right hand in response and the silver haired teen withdrew the offending appendage after getting struck three times in rapid succession.

Smirking down at his best friend, Riku decided to further tease him. "You still think this is some sort of dream, Sora?"

"Oh, be quiet," Sora barked back at him. There was no real heat in the red and black clothed boy's tone and his eyes were closed right now. He was also lightly rubbing his right hand against his abused cheek as he spoke. Pulling his hand slightly away from his face as a sudden smirk blossomed on his face, Sora opened his eyes and looked up at Riku. He said, "What about you, Riku? Feeling scared?"

Riku took the jest in good humor, a loud scoff bursting out of his mouth as he threw his head back. When he looked back down at Sora, there was a wide smirk resting on his face.

"Heh, you wish. If I'm feeling anything right now, its excitement," the silver haired boy told his best friend, sounding really confidant as he spoke. His expression turned serious a short moment later and the shift startled Sora slightly. With a more serious tone of voice, Riku said, "Anyway, enough about that for now. There is something else we need to talk about, Sora."

"Oh?" Sora asked him, sounding curious as he pulled himself back to his full height. Pivoting on his left foot, the red and black clothed boy turned himself around to fully face the silver haired teen. Lightly crossing his arms over his chest while looking his best friend straight in the eyes, Sora requested further information. "Something like…?"

"The raft," Riku told him, turning around to fully face Sora himself as he spoke. Seeing the younger boy adopt a slightly confused expression on his face, Riku clarified what he meant. The silver haired boy raised his right hand slightly, the palm turned towards the sky. At the same time, he said, "I think it needs a name. What about you?"

After blinking a few times once he had heard that question, Sora looked down at his feet and hummed to himself, wondering what to say. Riku just remained silent and he patiently waited for his friend to answer the question. The spiky haired teen did not keep him waiting for long.

"…I honestly never thought about it," Sora honestly admitted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Riku smirk at him, a faint shimmer of amusement in his green eyes. A little annoyed by that expression, Sora uncrossed his arms and shoved Riku's left shoulder back with his right hand. The smirk on the silver haired boy's face only grew in size. Shaking his head, Sora let loose a loud sigh before looking back at his friend. He said, "But you might be right. I also think the raft could use a name."

"Nice to see we're on the same page here," the slightly taller boy told his friend. He was still smirking.

Smirking slightly himself now, Sora crossed his arms over his chest and said, "Yeah, yeah. I'm guessing you've already got a suggestion for me. Let's hear it then."

The slightly taller boy just shrugged his shoulders, neither confirming nor denying Sora's words while he tilted his head to his right slightly. Both his eyes were closed when he performed the action. Placing his left hand back on his hip, Riku opened his eyes and lifted his right hand into the empty space between him and Sora. He simply said, "I was thinking about calling it Highwind. What about you, Sora? Got any ideas?"

' _Highwind, huh. You make it sound like our raft can fly,'_ Sora thought, mentally snorting at the name. Outwardly, he leaned back slightly while crossing both of his arms behind his head, silently watching Riku pull his arm back to his side. Looking towards the sky, the red and black clothed boy said, "I don't know. There's so many to choose from… Normandy… Enterprise… Daedalus… Pegasus… Hyperion… Prometheus-"

"You're just spouting off random names," Riku interrupted Sora. The silver haired teen sounded like he was barely able to keep himself from laughing out loud. Sora looked back at his friend with a small pout on his face. That action seemed to seal the deal for the older boy. Riku threw his head back and covered his eyes with his right hand as he burst out laughing.

"It's not that funny, Riku," Sora told him, a little annoyance lacing his tone. There was even a small frown on the spiky haired teen's face now. Watching Riku's laughter come to an end, Sora lowered his hands from where they rested at the back of his head. He said, "Besides, I kind of like that last name. Prometheus. It sounds powerful."

"It's a raft, Sora. Not some sort of superhero," Riku told him, lowering his hand from his face and leaning so far forward their foreheads were almost touching. With a teasing smirk locked on his face, the older boy asked him, "What are you, eight years old? Seven?"

Rolling his eyes, the spiky haired teen merely shoved his friend's face away from his own with his right hand. The action only caused another round of laughter to burst out of Riku's mouth as he took a single step back with his left foot. Sighing, Sora decided he had enough of this conversation. The red and black clothed boy turned away from his best friend and started walking towards the broken down bridge, intending to go looking for Kairi. As he did so, his hands found themselves once again tucked back behind his head.

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, Riku," the spiky haired teen called out over his shoulder, not bothering to look back at the older boy as he moved away. Sora could hear Riku regain control of himself behind him but he just kept on walking. The older boy called out to Sora as he reached the base of the wooden bridge.

"Is that still your choice? You're really going with Prometheus?" Riku loudly asked him. Coming to a stop, Sora lowered his hands back to their usual spots beside his abdominal region before turning to look past his right shoulder. Gazing back at the silver haired teen, he saw that Riku was just standing where the spiky haired teen had left him. The other islander looked completely calm and his left hand was resting on his hip as he met Sora's gaze.

"… Yeah, I think I am. You got a problem with that?" Sora responded after a moment, his tone laced with a strong helping of disinterest. During his second sentence, he pivoted on his left foot and turned around to fully face the older teen.

Riku simply shrugged his shoulder, another smirk forming on his face as he did so, and said, "No problem really. I'm just rather attached to Highwind and we only got one raft. It doesn't seem right to give it two different names."

"Your point being?" Sora pressed him lightly, momentarily pointing his right hand toward his friend as he spoke. The attached palm was turned to face the sky and his fingers were evenly spread out as he performed the physical action.

Though the red and black clothed boy didn't say it out loud, he already had an idea where his best friend was going with this. If he was honest with himself, Sora didn't mind using some sort of competition to decide what they were going to call the raft. If he had one caveat it was that Kairi should be allowed to make a suggestion as well before he and Riku went at it. It only seemed fair to the spiky haired teen. She did after all play a part in the raft's construction.

Humming softly to himself in mock thought, Riku closed his eyes and gently rubbed his chin with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Opening his eyes a moment later, the silver haired teen looked Sora in the eyes and said, "How about-"

"There you guys are!"

Riku lowered his hand slightly from his face, his eyelids blinking in surprise at being cut off by a loud voice. One that sounded a lot like Kairi's to both his and Sora's ears. Knowing that the sudden shout came from the nearby hill, both teens turned their heads in order to look toward it. They saw Kairi standing on top of the broken segment of the bridge still connected to the larger, and more rectangular shaped, slab of land. Her fists were planted squarely on her hips and the smallest of scowls was present on her face as she looked down at the two boys.

' _Uh oh,'_ Sora thought to himself, not liking the look of this. _'She seems mad.'_

"I've been waiting for you guys for what feels like forever. What are you two doing down there?" the redhead demanded to know, leaning forward as she did so. Feeling slightly nervous now, Sora rubbed the back of his head with his left hand and threw a glance at Riku. The silver haired teen didn't seem to notice because his green eyes were locked on to Kairi.

Sora's actions must have given Kairi an idea about what she had just interrupted. Stomping her left foot, the auburn haired girl yelled, "Really?! You guys were about to go at it again?!"

Sora flinched slightly were he stood, not liking how Kairi sounded like she was accusing them of committing some sort of crime. Pulling his left hand out of his hair, Sora threw another glance in Riku's direction. The spiky haired teen wasn't entirely sure what to say in response to this sudden outburst and hoped his best friend had some sort of idea instead. Unfortunately, the older boy didn't seem interested in talking right now. If anything, Riku just looked rather unimpressed, even bored, with Kairi right now. He just stood where Sora had left him, a blank expression on his face and arms crossed over his chest while he watched the red haired girl.

The silence seemed to help Kairi calm down. However, she was clearly still not in the mood for their shenanigans right now. Pulling herself up to her full height, Kairi said, "Settle whatever this is about later, you two. We still need to collect supplies for our trip. So if you still want to head out tomorrow, I suggest we go discuss what we need over by the raft."

Her piece said, the auburn haired girl promptly turned around and started walking away. She carelessly waved her right arm in dismissal during her first few steps. Not bothering to send her friends even a side glance, she calmly walked towards the far edge of the hill before turning to her left. Still not looking back towards her friends, Kairi walked down the hidden slope on the other side of the hill, her red hair the last thing to disappear from Sora's sight. Wondering what was going on with her, Sora looked to Riku once more. This time the older boy looked back at him and he simply shrugged his shoulders when he saw the questioning look on Sora's face.

"You see? It's just like I said. She's getting a little bit nervous but doesn't want to admit it," Riku told him, not sounding very concerned with the sudden change in Kairi's attitude today. His words only caused Sora to frown slightly as he watched the older boy uncross his arms and start walking towards him. As he moved closer to the spiky haired teen, Riku said, "Come on. Let's go have our team meeting. I don't think we want Kairi to come back here again."

After blinking slightly at Riku's term for their little get together with Kairi, Sora let loose a loud exhale through his nose and simply decided to go with the flow. It was his usual course of action when his friends start acting a little weird, according to his personal opinion. Turning around, the red and black clothed boy started to walk across broken down bridge. The wood creaked rather loudly beneath his bare feet in clear protest towards his presence but Sora paid the noise no mind. A glance over his right shoulder showed the spiky haired teen that Riku was only a single step behind him. The older boy didn't seem interested in trying to overtake his friend right now.

"Race you there?" Sora offered, holding up his left hand before his torso as he did so. The palm was turned towards the sky while he continued looking at Riku over his right shoulder.

To the spiky haired teen's slight surprise, Riku merely shook his head from side to side, silently dismissing the offer. When he was done with that motion, Riku said, "Nah, I've lost interest."

Despite wondering what was up with his best friend, Sora merely faced forward again and said, "If you say so."

The older boy did not reply as Sora led him halfway across the first section of the broken bridge. A few of the wooden planks had fallen off at some point, creating an opening in the middle of the bridge that was just wide enough for either boy to fall through it if they weren't careful. Were it not for the wooden posts still jammed into the sea – their upper tips visible through the opening - this segment would have been perfectly divided into two separate pieces right now. Well aware of its presence, Sora and Riku merely jumped over the divide. The spiky haired teen went first and the silver haired boy was only two seconds behind him. Continuing on their way in silence, the two boys soon reached the end of this segment.

Almost as soon as he had stepped on them with his right foot, the last four planks on this portion of the bridge suddenly gave way beneath Sora's weight. With a loud _crack_ , they detached themselves from their compatriots and fell down to the shallow waters lurking below. Despite coming into contact with nothing but soft sands and salt water when they reached the end of their descent, the dark brown pieces of wood shattered into several smaller fragments after landing.

Caught off guard by the sudden loss of his footing, Sora nearly fell after the now further broken planks. Leaning forward, he cried out slightly and swung his arms to the sides in a desperate attempt to keep himself from going over the edge. It was Riku's actions that ultimately saved him. The older boy quickly reached out with his left hand and took hold of Sora's hood before he leaned out to far. With a sharp tug, Riku pulled the red and black clothed boy away from the newly made edge. He pulled a little too hard however, which caused Sora to fall on his hands and rear beside him.

"Ow," Sora childishly whined at the impact. Lifting up his arms, the brown haired boy lightly shook his hands to get rid of the faint stinging pain he currently felt in his palms. Ignoring this, Riku let go of his Sora's hood and moved past his best friend.

"Be a bit more careful, Sora," Riku told the shorter boy, looking down at the spiky haired teen as he walked past him. "You know this old bridge has seen better days."

His piece said, Riku crouched down slightly and leaped onto the next segment of the bridge. Despite its recent increase in size, the divide between the two wooden constructs was still small enough for the two boys to easily jump across it. Landing on both feet atop the other segment, Riku swiped his left hand on his pants leg as he straightened his posture. Without looking back at his best friend, he continued on his way. Frowning slightly as he looked at Riku's shrinking back, Sora pushed himself back up to his feet.

"Yeah, yeah," the spiky haired boy said in response to Riku's reprimand, well aware the other boy likely couldn't hear him right now. Looking up from his feet, he saw that the silver haired teen had already leaped on to the final segment of the broken bridge. Putting his left hand beside his mouth, Sora loudly called out to him and said, "Hey, wait for me."

Riku just shook his head slightly as he started walking up the rectangular hill, heading for its opposite edge. Raising his right hand, he waved the arm in a clear hurry up gesture. The taller boy lowered the arm back to the side of his torso just before he proceeded to jump off the far edge of the hill, standing far closer to the island's mountain than Kairi had before she disappeared. The silver haired teen quickly vanished from sight as well once he finally jumped. His hair was the last thing to be obscured by the tall earthen juncture.

"Jerk," Sora whispered to himself, lightly shaking his head from side to side. A moment later, he crouched down and leaped onto the middle section of the broken bridge.

Swiftly walking across its flat surface, Sora proceeded to leap onto the final segment of the broken bridge without delay. Soon coming to walk across the hill itself, the spiky haired teen decided not to follow Riku's example. Instead, he turned to the right and took the same route as Kairi. After walking to the farthest edge of the rectangular hill, the spiky haired teen turned to his left just before he set foot on the grass outline. Walking down the small pathway located there, the red and black clothed boy's feet soon came into contact with the island's northern beach.

Continuing on his way, Sora saw the raft dead ahead. Almost half of its body was in the shallow water, which was causing the construction's underbelly to take on a darker shade of brown. Not being half the size of the southern beach, the northern beach was almost completely covered by tall palm trees with long thin grey trunks. It didn't exactly leave the three friends with much space to house their raft, which was almost three times the size of any single one of their rowboats. It was currently turned to face the ocean and a few large rocks had been set in the water directly in front of the raft. Those stones had been placed there by Sora and Riku during the early days of their project. Since the raft lacked any sort of anchor, it was the only way the three friends had to keep it from being dragged out into the open water by the tide when their backs were turned. Once they removed those rocks, all it would take was a simple push through the shallow waters and the raft would then be sailing across the ocean while taking the three friends to a currently unknown destination.

At this moment, Sora couldn't see Kairi anywhere while he approached the wooden construct he had helped build. The spiky haired teen did catch sight of Riku, who was currently standing on the back of the raft. He was turned towards the sail and seemed to be speaking to Kairi while holding his right hand slightly before his torso. The corners of the sail did curl backwards slightly, obstructing Sora's view of the wooden mast. Noticing the red and black clothed boy's approach, Riku lowered his right arm back to his side and nodded towards him. Kairi popped out from where she was hiding behind the sail a moment later. She looked towards Sora while clutching something in her left hand.

' _Are those seashells?'_ Sora thought to himself, noticing how the object looked like it was comprised of several sea shells. They were all roughly the same size and Kairi seemed to be trying to put them into a star shaped formation. She tied them together with small pieces of blue strings. Each sea shell represented a single arm of the star and Kairi was missing only one to complete the formation right now.

' _I guess she really is making herself a good luck charm,'_ Sora silently told himself. A small smile appeared on his face at the sight and he wasn't entirely convinced the auburn haired girl was doing it out of nervousness. Continuing his approach towards the raft, the spiky haired teen thought, _'That is just like Kairi.'_

"Good, you're here," Kairi called out to him, pulling the spiky haired teen away from his thoughts. She turned her gaze towards Riku as Sora came to a stop right before the raft's right flank. The redhead said, "As you both know, we need to decide what we are going to take with us on our trip. We also need to decide who is going to go and collect what too."

Sora and Riku both nodded their heads, neither protesting against how she just took charge of this whole get-together. Smiling kindly at them now, Kairi turned slightly in place and swung her left hand, along with the four sea shells she was currently holding, towards the raft's mast. "Having said that, I've already made some sandwiches for the trip. They should last a few days at least… although I can't make any guarantees about how fresh they'll taste tomorrow."

Turning his head to look towards the raft's mast, Sora saw a brown bag resting against the base of the wooden post. The bag was about half the size of Sora's torso. It also had a slightly lumpy appearance, which caused the spiky haired teen to wonder just how many sandwiches Kairi had actually made for the three of them. Still, the fact that she even did so was touching to Sora.

"That's fine," the red and black clothed boy told her, waving away Kairi's concerns with several casual swings of his left hand. He saw Riku cross his arms and nod his head in agreement out of the corner of his eye.

"Nice to see you're thinking ahead. A certain someone could learn something from you," Riku spoke next, directing his words towards Kairi. The red haired girl giggled slightly while Sora's head snapped sharply towards his left.

The brown haired boy's gaze quickly settled on Riku and he demanded to know, "Just what do you mean by that?"

A small smirk blossomed on the other boy's face in response to his question. Cocking his head to his left, Riku closed his eyes and gave a slightly exaggerated shrug his shoulders. Opening his eyes, the silver haired teen threw his head back slightly and turned his gaze towards the sky. While he gazed at the clouds above, the silver haired boy said, "You'll figure it out someday… I hope."

"Why you-" Sora began, feeling honestly annoyed by the humor in his best friend's tone. He took a step towards the other teen as he spoke but his movements and speech came to a stop when Kairi decided to speak her peace.

"All right, all right. That's enough of that. Can we focus here for a few minutes, please?" Kairi called out to them, holding up her right hand as she spoke. Lowering her hand back to her side, Kairi saw Riku and Sora both turn to look at her without saying another word to each other. Nodding slightly in thanks, the auburn haired girl focused her gaze on Riku's blank face. "I've got some ideas for some other stuff we could bring. What about you? What do you think we can take, Riku?"

' _Why is she asking him and not me,'_ Sora thought, a small frown appearing on his face as he looked towards the red haired girl. He couldn't help but feel a little hurt or jealous that she went to the older boy first. Perhaps he was still feeling a little annoyed by the silver haired teen's last taunt.

Unaware of what Sora was thinking, Riku hummed to himself in thought while he stood with arms crossed. After a moment, he said, "Well, fresh water is definitely a must here. I don't like the idea of taking it from the ocean while we're in the middle of our trip."

Both of his friends blanched at the idea of drinking the salty water. Kairi and Sora silently agreed with that idea but chose not to say anything just yet, wanting to hear what else Riku was going to say.

"Coconuts and berries wouldn't be bad either," the silver haired continued, ignoring or failing to notice what expressions his friends currently had on their faces. "There are edible mushrooms on this island too so we might as well grab some of those. A few bananas wouldn't be a bad idea either."

Wanting to start contributing to the discussion, Sora raised his left hand slightly above his head and asked, "What about some eggs and fish? They would be pretty good too."

To the spiky haired teen's surprise, Riku shook his head in the negative at his suggestion. Looking straight at Sora when he spoke next, the silver haired teen said, "We would have to cook them in order to ear and that means starting a fire. Probably not a good idea when we're stuck on a _wooden_ raft in the middle of the ocean."

Wincing slightly, Sora lowered his arm and conceded the point. The red and black clothed boy silently admonished himself for momentarily forgetting that little detail. He definitely didn't want to burn down the raft before their journey was over. An act that would likely leave the three friends stranded in the middle of the ocean. Sora saw Kairi try to give him an encouraging smile out of the corner of his eyes but the spiky haired teen gave away no sign that he had noticed the expression on her face. Fully focusing his gaze back on Riku, Sora saw that the taller boy had uncrossed his arms and was now rubbing the back of his head with his right hand.

"Some grapes might be nice as well," Riku said after a moment, sounding unsure. Shrugging his shoulders after a short pause, the silver haired teen lowered his arm and said, "That's all I got, Kairi."

"That's more than enough, Riku," Kairi told him. There was a small smile on her face as she spoke. Lifting her gaze to the heavens, the redhead said, "I can head back into town and take care of the fruit. No one is going to pay me much attention if they see me going around looking for some in the market."

"All right then, we'll leave the berries, the grapes, and the bananas to you," Sora told her, looking straight at the redhead as he threw his right hand slightly to the side. Ignoring how Kairi turned her head to look at him, the spiky haired teen turned to regard Riku himself. "I guess that leaves us with the water, the coconuts, and the mushrooms."

"Kairi can probably take care of the water too once she gets back into town," Riku told him. Pointing at himself with his right thumb, Riku added, "I'll take care of the coconuts. You take care of the mushrooms."

"All right, sure," Sora spoke, shrugging lightly. He did feel a little irritated at being ordered around by Riku just now but it was an extremely weak feeling, one he was able to easily suppress. Hearing Kairi sigh loudly, Sora turned to look at her.

With her head resting against her upraised right hand, the auburn haired girl softly told herself, "Why do I feel like I am doing most of the work today?"

"Seems fair," Riku told her, sounding unbothered by the idea. Turning to look at him, Sora saw his friend was crouching down and reaching towards something with his left hand. Lowering his gaze, the spiky haired teen saw that a couple of wooden swords had been casually dropped onto the raft at some point.

' _When did those get there?'_ Sora wondered to himself, placing his right hand on his hip while he watched Riku take hold of one of the makeshift weapon by the handle. The red and black clothed boy turned his gaze towards Riku's face when he heard the silver haired boy speak up.

"Think of it as payback for making the two of us do most of the heavy lifting," Riku told Kairi, straightening his posture as he did so. Out of the corner of his eye, Sora saw him wave his right arm in Sora's general direction while he stood up.

"Fine, whatever," Kairi told him offhandedly. Turning his gaze back to her, Sora saw that the auburn haired girl was kneeling down slightly. He watched her place the small formation of sea shells she was carrying on top of a small lightly yellow cloth resting on the raft. Another sea shell was already down there, resting alongside a pair of scissors with light blue handles and some discarded blue strings.

Straightening her posture, Kairi held up her right hand and smiled cheekily at her friends. "You two just make sure you do your part of the work today. And play nice now," she told them.

"What does she think we are? Little kids?" Sora asked himself. He didn't realize he had said that out loud until both of his friends turned to him. Riku's right eyebrow was slightly climbing up his forehead while Kairi covered her mouth with her right hand as she started giggling again. Rolling his eyes, Sora waved his right arm in dismissal. "Knock it off, Kairi."

"Sora. Here," Riku called out to him as Kairi's giggles died down. Turning to face his best friend, the red and black clothed boy saw the older teen throw a small white ball at him with his right hand. Catching it with his left hand, Sora realized from the feel of its texture that it was actually white paper bag. As he started to unfurl it, he heard Riku say, "Use that to carry the mushrooms you collect. Fill it up as much as you can and then come back."

"Got it. Thanks," Sora told him, not taking his eyes off of the bag he was currently unfolding. Once it was fully unfurled, he waved both hands up and down in front of him to straighten it a little more. Hearing the taller boy scoff at him, the spiky haired teen turned his head slightly and watched Riku walk towards the nearby trees.

Since he was holding the toy sword he just picked up with his right hand now, Riku waved his left hand in farewell. Without looking over his shoulder, the silver haired boy said, "I figured you wouldn't bother to bring one for yourself."

"And just what's that supposed to mean?" Sora demanded, taking a step forward. Kairi stepped into his line of sight, a warning look in her eyes as she silently told him not to start something. Huffing to himself, the spiky haired teen decided to acquiesce to her demand. However, he couldn't resist throwing a taunt back at Riku. Calling out to the slightly older boy, he said, "And just why are you carrying that sword? How is that supposed to help you collect the coconuts?"

Stopping by the base of a tree, Riku threw a confidant smile towards Sora over his right shoulder. The sight of it actually caused Sora's irritation to be replaced by confusion. Before he had a chance to say anything, Riku turned his focus back towards the tree in front of him. The taller boy proceeded to start whacking the thin grey trunk as hard as he could, hitting it over and over again. He was mostly swinging his makeshift weapon with one arm but occasionally held it with both hands when he attacked. The tree slightly shook in place under the fury of Riku's assault and several coconuts soon fell from its head. Bringing his assault to an end as soon as he saw the first one land in the sands, Riku took a step back and casually caught one of the falling coconuts with his left hand. He grinned triumphantly at Sora from where he stood.

The spiky haired teen could only deadpan at the sight. Ignoring the sound of Kairi lightly slapping herself in the face with her right hand, Sora thought to himself, _'Why do I suddenly get the feeling Riku picked the easy job today?'_

Throwing his head back, Sora banished the thought as a loud sigh erupted from his mouth. Turning around and showing his back towards Riku, the spiky haired teen thought to himself, _'It doesn't matter. I've got my own stuff to deal with right now.'_

Glancing down at the white paper bag he was now holding with his left hand alone, Sora took off to begin his search for mushrooms. While far from the most glamorous job he could be doing right now, it was still a job Sora agreed to do. And it needed to get done today, if Sora and his friends wanted to set sail tomorrow morning. If he hurried, the red and black clothed boy might be able to finish before his silver haired friend. That would be perfect.

As he walked away from the raft, ignoring Kairi as she casually followed him from a short distance, only one question resounded in Sora's mind.

' _How hard can this be?'_

* * *

 **Sometime Later,**

 **After About An Hour Had Passed,**

' _I am feeling very frustrated right now,'_ Sora admitted to himself.

The spiky haired teen was currently walking across the flat wooden bridge connecting the two play islands together. The white paper bag, which he was currently holding with his right hand, swung lightly at his side as Sora moved away from the smaller play island. So far he had only managed to find two mushrooms and that wasn't nearly enough in his opinion. Fighting the urge to sigh in defeat, the red and black clothed boy thought to himself, _'There is no way I am going to beat Riku at this rate.'_

The spiky haired teen had combed the entire northern section of the larger play island. The first mushroom he found had been located at the base of the rectangular hill, right up against the mountain. Sora found the second one after he had doubled back to the small forest on the northern beach. It had been pushed right up against the mountain by one of the tree trunks and it had been a struggle to get his arm to fit through the small divide in order to pick it up. Ignoring the way Riku would smirk at him while bringing several coconuts to the raft, Sora had left to try his luck on the southern side of the larger play island right after he collected the second mushroom. Finding not a single one near the wooden wall, he decided to check the smaller play island first. Unfortunately, getting on his hands and knees and digging through the shrubbery there had yielded nothing.

' _If I had known this was going to be so hard I would have insisted on collecting the coconuts,'_ Sora thought, silently seething at Riku. Knowing the silver haired boy, he was probably done already and casually relaxing while waiting for Sora and Kairi to get back to the raft. As he came to stand on the tall hill poking out of the larger play island's mountain, Sora told himself, _'This is so unfair.'_

"That was a total waste of time, Wakka!"

Caught off guard by the sudden shout, Sora stopped marching towards the wooden door directly before him and flinched where he stood. Recovering a moment later, Sora wondered, _'Was that Tidus? It sure sounded like him.'_

Turning to his left, the spiky haired teen walked to the edge of the hill. Looking down below, he spotted Tidus and Wakka down below. The two boys were walking away from the small lake and the hole in the mountain. Tidus was walking slightly in front of his taller companion and running his hands all over his body, clearly attempting to dust himself off. The two of them appeared to be walking towards the docks. The two rowboats that had been positioned closest to Sora's had already disappeared because Selphie and Kairi had both left the islands at an earlier point in time. Their boats were gone well before Sora first set foot on the smaller play island today. Wondering what was going on with Tidus and Wakka, the spiky haired teen focused his gaze on the two of them as they continued walking towards the pier.

Slightly shorter than Sora, Tidus had a thin body, lightly tanned skin, blue eyes, and light brown hair. His hair was rather messy but resembled Riku's hairstyle the most despite several strands poking out from the top of his head in a manner similar to small curling spikes. The young islander wore a short sleeved shirt that seemed slightly too short for him right now and it was left open on the front, exposing his chest and stomach. The shirt was primarily colored yellow with a white outline but its sleeves were white with small yellow hems instead. Tidus also wore pitch black shorts. The pants legs of his shorts were of different lengths, with the left leg barely reaching the halfway point between his waist and left knee. The right pants legs went slightly further than Tidus' right knee. A zipper circled the longer pants leg, its location even with the hem of the shorter pants leg. Another zipper rested diagonally on Tidus' left hip, its presence likely identifying the location of a small pocket. Attached to the front of his shorts was a small fanny pack that Tidus wore facing forward. Another zipper cut diagonally over the front of the small pouch. Like Wakka, Tidus was also wearing sandals. His were primarily light brown with grey straps, the latter of which were pressing a small yellow cloth-like apparatus on to the top of his feet.

With his blitzball currently tucked under his left arm, Wakka walked with his right hand on the side of his neck as he cracked his head from side to side. He said, "Cool it, y'ah. Sure that place was a bummer but it's no reason to lose yer temper, man."

"Yeah, yeah. I know," Tidus told him, not sounding very apologetic as he waved his left arm in dismissal. He didn't sound irritated either however.

Neither boy bothered looking up at Sora's location before they turned their backs toward the hill he was standing on. Because of that, they failed to notice him peering down at them and listening to their conversation as they moved closer towards the small pier.

"Wonder who did all those chalk drawings we found on the walls. They didn't seem too old, y'ah," Wakka mused out loud, looking up at the sky and pulling his hand away from his neck. Tidus merely shrugged his shoulder as he continued walking in front of the taller boy.

"Who knows? Does it really matter though? There is nothing there but a bunch rocks and a lot of brown mushrooms," the sandy haired teen told his friend, sounding like he had finished calming down. Sora's ears perked up when he heard that last word.

' _Mushrooms?'_ Sora thought to himself. Taking his eyes off Tidus and Wakka, the spiky haired boy turned his gaze towards the hole at the base of the mountain. He knew he had yet to check that place but he couldn't help but ask himself, _'Could it really be that simple?'_

Tidus kept on talking, utterly heedless of the red and black clothed boy's silent question. Sora overheard him saying, "You sure those brown ones are edible, buddy? I am starting to feel a little hungry."

Looking back at the pair, Sora heard Wakka say, "Yeah, I recognized them. Ya'h can eat those mushrooms but I don't think ya'll like the taste, man. If yer feeling hungry, we can find something to eat in town and then get some guys together for a game afterwards."

A bark of laughter burst out of Tidus as the two boys began to pull out of Sora's hearing range. "Now that, Wakka my man, sounds like a good plan."

' _So there actually are edible mushrooms back there,'_ Sora thought to himself, turning his gaze to once again to look down at the hole in the mountain. He shrugged his shoulders a moment later, deciding it was worth a shot to take a look. Glancing down at the white paper bag he was currently carrying, the spiky haired teen gave it a light shake while thinking, _'Hopefully I will find enough to fill this thing.'_

Leaping down from the cliff, Sora landed with a small grunt on the sands. He just barely managed to keep himself from using his left hand to steady himself while he crouched. Rising up to his full height, he jumped out of the beach and onto solid ground. Ignoring the small wooden cottage to the right of his location, Sora looked to his left instead. A quick glance showed him that neither Wakka nor Tidus were looking in his direction right now. The two of them were too busy untying their rowboats from the pier. Not wanting to run the risk of them seeing him now and asking what he was doing, Sora quickly slung his white bag over his right shoulder and ran towards his destination. It was a short run and the base of the island's massive tree soon became a rather thick barrier between the spiky haired teen and the other two boys.

After slowing down to a brisk walk for the last few footsteps, the red and black clothed boy came to stand directly in front of the small entrance to the old hideout. For a long moment he just stood there, looking at the innocent hole in the mountain, wondering to himself if he should go in. Realizing he was hesitating and unable to decide why, Sora gave his head a wild shaking to get rid of his inexplicable nervousness. After that, he slapped himself on the forehead with his left hand.

"What is up with me?" he wondered aloud to himself, the words little more than a whisper. Pulling his hand away from his face, the red and black clothed boy looked up the mountainside. "It's not as if there is some sort of monster waiting for me in there."

A small chuckle burst out of Sora at that particular set of words. The spiky haired teen recalled how convinced he had been that one had made this cave its lair when he and Riku explored it for the first time. It turned out all that noise he had heard was nothing more than the wind coming through a hole in the ceiling. Sora couldn't help but smile at the memory and the nostalgia it brought helped settle his nerves. After lightly shaking his head again while silently chastising himself for being afraid of nothing, the spiky haired teen crouched down before the opening. Pinning the paper bag against his stomach with his right arm, he started to squeeze his way through the entrance to his old hideout.

' _It's a little tighter than I remember,'_ Sora thought to himself a moment later. He found it rather difficult to pull himself into the small tunnel and the low ceiling soon forced him down to one knee. Unable to lift his left foreleg off the ground, the red and black clothed boy practically dragged himself into the tunnel using his right foot and left hand. It was very slow going but the spiky haired teen refused to give up. However, he couldn't help but wonder, _'How did someone as big as Wakka manage to get in here?'_

Fortunately for Sora, the small tunnel he was traversing through grew wider as he pulled himself forward. Eventually, the ceiling rose up enough for him to once again walk on both feet, though he had to do so while hunched over. A few more steps and, to his immense relief, Sora was able to walk upright again. Rubbing his forehead with his left forearm briefly, Sora continued on his way. As he did so, he allowed the white paper bag he was carrying to fall back to his side now that there was enough room for him to carry it like that. Coming to the end of the passageway, Sora turned to his left and entered his old hideout, stepping past the roughly oval-shaped entranceway outline by two large tree roots.

The cavern was a still of a decent size, with brown dirt covering the ground and the sides comprising of nothing but smooth rocks of differing stacked on top of and against each other. A few roots from the giant tree outside were mixed into the naturally forming walls here and there. Due to the cavern's rather rounded shape, the formation of rocks closely resembled a rough bowl that had been flipped upside down. The ceiling had a fairly large hole in the middle of it, through which fresh air was constantly entering the hideout. A rock large enough to act as a stool poked out of the ground a few steps away from Sora's current location. It was pushed to the side slightly and was therefore not standing directly between the entranceway and the center of the cavern.

Many of the rocks here were adorned with all sorts of different drawings Sora, Kairi, and occasionally Riku had made using white chalk when they were younger. The spiky haired teen could tell at a glance which ones were his and which were not. He was a little ashamed to admit that his drawings were of a slightly lower quality compared to those made by his friends. Then again, Sora could admit to himself that drawing and painting was never really his strong suit. He didn't seem to have the right amount of patience for it, always rushing to get his creation done as soon as possible.

Pushing that aside, Sora focused his gaze on the one thing that had been in this cave long before he and Riku had first found it. Resembling a wooden door, the structure was lodged into the rocks on the other side of the cavern and it stood directly opposite the tunnel entrance. Still slightly taller than Sora, the door had a wide oval-shape that was partially cut off at the bottom. The structure appeared to be have two separate sections. These sections consisted of a rather thick light brown outline that framed the actual door, which was composed of dark brown wood. Yellow markings were engraved on the dark brown wood as. They mostly formed a line running down each side and the base of the construct while taking on a shape resembling two pairs of curling branches or hooks that refused to touch each other at the top of the door. A small yellow symbol resembling an extra curvy question mark without the dot or a stretched out S rested in between and below the four hooks.

Like the other wooden doors on this island, this one did not possess a window, making it impossible for Sora to see what lurked beyond it. It also lacked a doorknob, so it could not be easily opened. Sora and Riku had both tried multiple times to force it open by pushing against the door but it never budged, even when the two boys worked together. The two boys tried to pry it open with their fingers but that also never amounted to anything. One day, Riku took a sharp knife from his house without his parents noticing and tried to cut an opening. That didn't work either as the wood proved itself to be surprisingly sturdy and unrelenting despite Riku's determined assault. After that, the two boys and Kairi gave up on ever figuring out what was behind it. And over time, Sora just lost his interest in whatever could be lurking on the other side.

Unwilling to once again get dragged into the unsolvable mystery, Sora forced himself to look around the chamber. He was more than a little surprised to see that Tidus and Wakka had been telling the truth. There were multiple brown mushrooms sprouting out of the ground here, each of them standing by themselves in various locations on the ground. They definitely weren't here the last time Sora visited the hideout, further proof that it had been a long time since the red and black clothed boy had last set foot in this place. These mushrooms must have somehow just sprung up in his absence. Either way, the brown haired boy quickly went about collecting them, one at a time.

' _Oh yeah, I hit the jackpot here, folks,'_ he thought to himself while peeling his fourth mushroom off the ground. _'I won't be able to take them all with just one bag but I know where to go now if Riku and Kairi ask me to collect some more.'_

With that thought in mind, Sora darted across the small cavern, moving from mushroom to mushroom with a pleased grin stuck on his face the whole time. Bending down slightly as he came up to each mushroom, he carefully pulled it out of the ground with his left hand and dropped it into the bag he was carrying with his right hand. After collecting ten of them, twelve if Sora bothered to count the two he had in his bag before he entered the cavern, the spiky haired teen noticed that the bag was getting rather full. It would not be able to hold much more and there was at least another ten mushrooms scattered around the place. Wanting to collect at least one more, Sora looked for the mushroom closest to his position. Looking to his left, he saw one standing rather close to the strange wooden door, positioned almost directly between the object and Sora himself.

Quickly moving over to it, Sora went down to his right knee and reached for the mushroom with his left hand. With a simple tug, he pulled it out of the dirt covered ground. Rising to his feet yet still remaining hunched over, the spiky haired teen started to put it in his bag. Not bothering to watch his arm's progress, he started to lift up his head. The action drew his gaze towards the rock standing directly before him. Catching sight of the two small white chalk drawings engraved there, the spiky haired teen proceeded to freeze in place the very second before he dropped the mushroom he was holding in to the white paper bag. The only movement Sora made was a slight widening of his eyes as he looked upon two sketches innocently resting in front of his face.

The one on the left resembled the right side of Sora's face and hair, only completely bleached white as it faced the other image. The stone was left untouched in several areas to give the drawing a dark eyebrow, an equally dark eye, and a dark outline for the edges of the ear. Opposite it was a much more poorly done rendition of Kairi's face, which was looking back at the sketch of Sora's own. The white chalk was primarily used to outline the shape of Kairi's head, her mouth, the extra wild strands of her hair, and her left eyeball. Everything else was left untouched.

' _Man, I really was bad at this,'_ Sora thought to himself as soon as the shock wore off. Pulling himself to his full height after dropping the mushroom he was holding into his white paper bag, the spiky haired teen looked down at the two pictures he and Kairi had made with a small fond smile glued to his face. The red and black clothed boy couldn't recall exactly when they did these sketches but at least a year had passed since Sora first showed Kairi this cave. The auburn haired girl did the image of Sora at the same time as the fourteen year old boy did her face. _'I am glad Kairi never made fun of me for this.'_

Slowly coming down to his right knee, Sora gently set the bag of mushrooms he was holding down beside him. As he let go of it, his left forearm came to rest on his left knee. For a long moment, Sora just gazed at the two drawings before him, trying his hardest to commit their appearance to memory. It would probably be a long time before he ever set foot in this cave again and the spiky haired teen found himself regretting the fact that he didn't spend more time here with his friends recently.

' _Maybe we should all pay this place one last visit before we head home today,'_ Sora thought to himself, thinking of Riku and Kairi as he did so. He wasn't sure how they would feel about such a suggestion but the brown haired boy vowed to at least bring it up at some point.

He found he rather liked the idea and he eventually started to gently run his right forefinger across the white portions of the one he had made. Sora was careful not to press down too hard as he did so, not wanting to risk the slim possibility of smudging the image, and his finger moved very slowly. The spiky haired teen felt as if he could almost recall every step of the process he went through while making this sketch, from the first strike all the way to the last.

' _I really was bad at this,'_ Sora told himself, well aware that he was repeating that line. He couldn't help but smile at the admission. While he felt his drawing skills had improved with time, it wasn't nearly as much as his sword fighting skills. Fortunately, being a poor artist was one of the few things the red and black clothed boy didn't mind his friends making fun of him for.

Still, with the sudden thought that he was a better drawer in mind, Sora's smile turned into a very soft frown. Looking down at the drawing, the red and black clothed boy wondered, _'Should I try and fix it? Maybe add something to it?'_

After a few short seconds had passed, Sora pulled his right hand away from the sketch and waved his right hand in dismissal of the thought. Rolling his eyes, the spiky haired teen told himself, _'I'll probably just ruin it. Besides, it's about time I went back to the raft. I don't know about Kairi but Riku is probably waiting for me.'_

That said, Sora pushed himself up with his right hand on the ground and rose to his full height. Closing his eyes, he arched his back slightly and raised his arms to the ceiling as far as they could go while standing on the tips of his bare toes. Once he was done with that momentary stretch, Sora opened his eyes and turned his back to the two sketches. The red and black clothed boy was careful not to touch the bag of mushrooms beside him with his leg as he moved. He would have reached for said bag the moment after he completed his turn had he not caught sight of something that shouldn't be in the cavern right now.

Another person. And someone the spiky haired teen did not recognize.

"Wow," Sora cried out in shock at the sight, throwing his hands in front of his test and taking a sudden step back with his right foot. The action caused the base of the spiky haired teen's heel to come into contact with the rock directly behind him. At the same time, his leg jostled the white paper bag beside him and caused it to fall onto its side, spilling some of its contents. Heedless of this, Sora called out to his unexpected guest and demanded to know, "Who's there?"

The newcomer, whoever they were, was standing in a small alcove on the other side of the cavern. The fissure was close to the cave's tunnel entrance and more than large enough for this person to hide in it. Despite standing rather casually in the center of the alcove, the shadows seems to cling to the figure in a semi-serious attempt to obscure them from Sora's eyes. It didn't work as Sora could make out that this person as dressed in a hooded brown robe that possessed long billowing sleeves. The robe was rather plain and worn-looking, with its only ornamentation being a pair of dark reddish-brown leather straps forming an X over the chest and back. Five metal studs were located in a row on each strap, with one stud being covered by another where the two straps crossed over the mysterious person's chest. This person's hands were tucked into his or her sleeves and kept hidden from view. The hood was also pulled up over the figure's head, their face complete consumed by darkness. The figure's feet were shield from view by the base of the brown robe. Despite standing slightly hunched over, the figure was still taller than Sora, leading him to believe this person was an adult.

Seeing that no response was coming to his sudden question, Sora frowned slightly. Pulling his right foot forward slightly, he lowered his arms and called out to the figure again. With a calm voice he asked the hooded person, "Hello? Can you hear me?"

This time the mysterious figure chose to speak up. The sound of their voice identified the hooded figure as a man and Sora was pretty sure he had never in his life heard someone speak with such a deep voice. Ignoring all of Sora's questions, the robed individual stated, "I've come to see the door to this world."

"What?" Sora asked him, caught off guard by that particular phrase. The spiky haired teen found himself wondering what this person was talking about as he looked at the hooded man with wide eyes. _'Door to this world. What is he talking about?'_

Turning his gaze slightly to the right, Sora eyed the roughly oval shaped wooden construct to his right. The red and black clothed boy made sure to keep the stranger in the corner of his vision as he did so. He asked himself, _'Is that what he is talking about? Does he know how to open it?'_

Ignoring Sora's actions, the man continued speaking. "It is tied to the darkness," the mysterious man spoke, his tone sounding like he was stating a fact and not speaking directly to Sora right now. The words drew the brown haired boy's blue eyes back to the stranger's cloaked form. "Soon to be completely eclipsed."

There was something ominous in those words and it caused a chill to crawl down Sora's spine while he gazed at the hooded person. The spiky haired teen did not know why they affected him like that by they still did. It was making him start to feel a little irritated deep down. Sora noticed that the mysterious man had yet to move an inch from where he had been standing when Sora first laid eyes on him. The spiky haired teen could not help but feel there was something unnatural about the stooped stranger's lack of movement. This feeling only further heightened his unease, which was starting to feel like something close to fear.

Unwilling to admit he was feeling this way and unhappy that this hooded figure was drawing such an emotion out of him just by speaking, Sora chose to lash out. Raising his right hand before his face, the red and black clothed boy curled the attached fingers into a fist. Shaking the newly made fist in the stranger's direction, Sora demanded, "Whoever you are, knock it off. Stop freaking me out like this."

The stranger gave no response to the spiky haired teen's words. If he made any sort of physical gesture, such as cocking his own head to the side slightly, it was perfectly masked by the brown robe he was wearing. The shadows under his hood were still pitch black, preventing Sora from seeing any portion of the mystery man's face. The red and black clothed boy had no way of knowing if this person was even looking at him right now, despite the rim of the man's hood being turned in his direction.

' _What is up with this guy?'_ Sora wondered to himself, narrowing his eyes as he lowered his fist to his side. His frowned deepened as he tried to recall if he had ever heard the man's voice before, hoping to uncover his identity. Finding no answer in his memories, the spiky haired teen could only conclude that he had no idea who this person was. That only made him more unsettled.

' _Who is this guy? How did he get here? When did he get here?'_ Sora asked himself, firing off a new question before he had the chance to even think up an answer for the one that came before it. The brown haired boy knew for a fact that the mysterious stranger had not been standing in that alcove when he first arrived. It had been one of the first places Sora had gone to in order to collect some mushrooms. Two of the mushrooms currently in his bag were resting in that very spot before Sora picked them up.

Seeing that the silence between them wasn't bringing him anymore closer to getting answers to the questions swirling in his head, Sora reluctantly decided to speak up again. He tried to sound brave and commanding but failed to full reach it. At the very least, the spiky haired teen did not think he sounded as nervous as he currently felt. He asked the hooded man, "How did you get here? Where did you come from?"

The mysterious man spoke up as soon as Sora was done talking. However, he once again failed to answer any of the spiky haired teen's question when he did so. Instead he said, "You do not yet know what lies beyond the door."

The stranger sounded genuinely disappointed by that fact, which almost caused the annoyance brewing in the spiky haired teen's chest to surpass his unease. His words, however, confirmed Sora's theories that he was talking about the wooden door directly to the fourteen year old's right. This hooded man, whoever he was, knew what this door was and where it led to. Were it not for the two emotions fighting for dominance in his chest right now, Sora might have been happily asking this person how to open it. Now however, he chose to ask him something else.

"You're not from the islands, are you?" Sora asked him, more for the sake of getting those words out than anything else. The stranger made no reply to that question and simply stood in place. If he actually bothered to nod or shake his head in response to the question, the darkness obscuring his face made it impossible for Sora to see the motion. Still the spiky haired teen took a step forward with his left foot and he said, "Are you… from another world?"

The red and black clothed boy wasn't sure what prompted that question. Perhaps it was his desire to go out and see other worlds that made him bring it up. But, considering his inability to recognize the stranger's voice, the hooded figure being from another island or distance world did indeed seem very likely. The Destiny Islands were a small community, everybody knew everybody else's name and the sound of their voices. Unless this man had somehow changed or disguised his voice before coming here, there was no way he could be from the Destiny Islands. Though the stranger did not visibly react, that particular question managed to prompt him to speak up. This time, Sora could detect a faint tone of annoyance in his deep voice while he spoke.

"There is so very much to learn. You understand so little," the hooded man told him. He made the words like he was accusing Sora of committing a crime, if not an outright insult. That was the last straw for the spiky haired teen. His frustration quickly overwhelmed his unease and instinctively reacted to the strange man's cold remark.

"Oh yeah," Sora snapped, taking another step forward and raising his right fist in front of himself again. If this man wanted a fight, the red and black clothed boy was more than ready to give it to him. How tough could this guy be? The red and black clothed boy loudly said, "Well, you'll see. I'm going to get out and learn what's out there."

"A meaningless effort," replied the stranger, speaking up the very second Sora was done making his sudden declaration. His cloaked form still didn't make even the slightest of twitch where he stood but his tone was firmly dismissing Sora's words. He told Sora, "One who knows nothing can understand nothing,"

' _What is up with this guy?'_ Sora thought to himself, lips peeling back slightly as a growl of frustration erupted from his mouth. Not even Riku had ever sounded this sure of himself or treated Sora's opinion as absolutely irrelevant. _'It's like he's convinced he has all the answers or something.'_

Not wanting to look at the strange man anymore, Sora instead turned his head to the right and stared at the strange door. For the first time in a long time, the spiky haired teen wondered what secrets were lurking on the other side. Sora didn't know what he was expecting to see but when his eyes finally landed on the wooden object nothing about the thing had changed since the last time he looked at it. Despite a fair part of him having expected this, the young islander could not help but feel a little disappointed. His frown deepening, the red and black clothed boy turned his gaze back towards the hooded man's location. Sora's eyes widened as soon as they came to land on the alcove.

The empty alcove.

' _He's gone,'_ Sora thought to himself, completely surprised by this discovery. The shock was almost as great as the one he had felt when he first noticed the strange man. The spiky haired teen even leaned back slightly while stretching his arms forward, the fingers on his hands spread wide before him. _'When did he…?'_

Dropping that train of thought for the moment, Sora ran to the entrance way, leaving his bag of mushrooms behind without throwing a single glance its way. Skidding slightly on the ground as he came to a stop, Sora grabbed a hold of the root on the entryway's left side. Leaning into the rounded teen, the spiky haired teen peered down its length in hopes of spotting the hooded man in the middle of his escape. He found no sign of him there. All the spiky haired teen saw was the dirt, rocks, and gravel that made up the makeshift corridor.

' _There's no way, he went out this way,'_ Sora told himself. The young islander couldn't believe someone so hunched over could run and crawl at the speed it would have taken him to leave that way without Sora noticing. Especially without making a sound. Besides, the stranger must have been slightly taller than Wakka. Would he have even been able to fit through the cave's opening?

Looking down at the ground, Sora frowned in confusion when he saw no new compressions in the ground to indicate someone had walked over it. The only foots prints he saw, faint as they were, belonged to Wakka, Tidus, and himself. And they were fading fast. Pulling himself out of the tunnel's opening, the red and black clothed boy looked back at the alcove. He saw no footprints to indicate the hooded man had just been standing there for a fair length of time either.

' _Was that all in my head?'_ Sora thought to himself, feeling unsettled by this discovery. He tossed the idea aside a moment later with a violent shake of his head, considering the very thought ridiculous. _'What was up with that guy?'_

Deciding not to mention he met the strange man to his friends, Sora turned backed to the wooden door and walked over to where he had left the bag of mushrooms. He sighed slightly when he saw that the bag had fallen on its side, spilling almost half of its contents into the ground.

Bending down, he took hold of the bag with his left hand this time and pulled it back into proper positioning. The movement caused another mushroom to fall onto the ground. With his right hand, Sora picked up all seven of them and placed them back inside the white paper bag one at a time.

Lifting his gaze once he put the last mushroom into the bag, Sora's eyes once again fell on the two drawings of him and Kairi. For a split second, his mind overflowed with the memory of him and Kairi kneeling down before this rock while they scratched its surface with a white chalk. The red and black clothed boy almost smiled at the memory but the surprise appearance of that strange man had completely ruined his return to the old hideout for him. Now, he just wanted to complete his business and get out of here. Whether or not he would come back here later today and invite his best friends along for the visit remained to be seen.

' _I wonder if there is enough time left for me to catch up to Wakka and Tidus so I can join in their game,'_ Sora thought to himself. He needed to do something fun after that strange meeting just now. Hopefully it will help him forget this unexpected encounter or, at least, drive away the strange unease he had felt while listening to the man.

Looking to his left, the spiky haired teen once again looked at the strange wooden door. He found himself wondering what the hooded figure meant when he called it the door to this world. Forcing himself to believe they were just mad ramblings a moment later, Sora pulled himself to his full height and lifted the white paper bag off the ground with his left hand. Tearing his eyes away from the wooden door, he pulled the bag and its contents against his chest and held it there with his right forearm. Once he was certain the bag wasn't going to fall or spill its contents, Sora let go of its handles with his left hand,

Carrying the bag just like that, Sora turned towards the cavern's entrance and started walking back towards it. While he moved at a casual pace, he was still determined to get out of here and find something to help him forget his encounter with the strange hooded man. Because of that, the spiky haired teen never once thought to throw one last glance at the strange wooden door behind him as he made his exit from the underground cavern.

Perhaps that was the wisest choice he could have made. Had he actually gone towards the strange door and pressed his ear against the dark brown wood, he might have been able to hear an extremely faint sound coming from it for the first time in his life. A sound that seemed to originate from the other side of the structure.

A sound that greatly resembled the sound of many small sharp objects scratching against wood.

* * *

 **And cut.**

 **A bit of an ominous cliffhanger but it is a good place to end this. I know I may have sidelined Kairi for most of this chapter but these things happen frequently in various chapters in actual books and episodes in TV shows. They should not happen repeatedly throughout different games in a series, especially if said person is supposed to be one of the main cast.**

 **Writing Wakka's unique speech was a pain. I might not continue it if we see him again later. And as promised, I skip the race between Sora and Riku this time. I wasn't entirely sure how to write it and the words wouldn't come out the few times I tried. I lengthened the conversation between Sora and Riku to give Kairi the excuse to come to their location at the very last second before they both agreed to compete over what to call the raft. In canon, Kairi did say that she was feeling afraid at some point about the prospect of going on their journey and people tend to lash out when they are afraid. In this case, I made it so that Kairi doesn't have a tolerance for the boy's tom foolery today, at least until they get their work done, and that this emotion was what ultimately pushed Kairi to create her lucky charm.**

 **As you can see I changed the food supplies around a bit. I am not too sure why they had us collecting fish and a bird egg in canon as those were foods the three teens would have to cook while out on the raft. Since they didn't have access to a stove, their only option would be to start a fire. As Riku pointed it out, not a good idea while on a wooden raft in the middle of the ocean. So I increased the amount of mushrooms and gave Kairi the task of collecting a large amount of fruit instead of just standing around waiting for Sora to collect everything.**

 **I used the increase in mushrooms to avoid having Sora draw the paopu fruit on the wall as in canon. Looking back that was our first actual clue that Sora was genuinely interested in Kairi as it was only implied twice in a previous cutscene, not directly stated. As this series will likely not be SoKai and fourteen is a little too young for me to support the idea of Sora pursuing a serious romantic relationship right now, I turned the secret spot into a mushroom garden and had Sora collect eleven of them to give you-know-who (yes, I don't mean Voldemort) the time he needed to make his unexpected appearance. That was probably the only part of this chapter I enjoyed writing.**

 **No promises about any violence next chapter but we will definitely be seeing a certain pair of Disney characters once again when it comes out. I forgot to mention at an earlier chapter but when I started writing this story I considered switching the roles of a certain Disney trio around just for fun. It didn't quite have the same feel to it no matter which combo I tried and the idea of making the tall one the King of Disney Castle actually caused me to wake up in the middle of night and ask myself what I was thinking. So, we will be going with their canon positions in Disney Castle.**

 ** **Anyway, that's all for today folks. Props up to anyone who can guess where all the different names I had Sora list came from. :)  
****


	8. Chapter 07

**Hi folks. Welcome to the next chapter of Kingdom Hearts - Awakened Fate. It's another interlude chapter again but this time Sora won't be taking center stage for the majority of it. I honestly expected this one to be a lot easier to write than the last one but I somehow lost my groove or drive while writing the parts that didn't feature Sora for some reason. Probably because I still didn't get too the fun stuff.**

 **Anyway, here is chapter seven of my first fanfiction story.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the any characters or other creations that are a part of the Final Fantasy franchise, the Kingdom Hearts franchise, the Disney Franchise, or the Fire Emblem franchise. This story was created solely for the express purpose of providing entertainment for fun and the chance to improve my abilities as a writer.**

* * *

Kingdom Hearts – Awakened Fate

Chapter 07 – Disaster Is On Its Way

 **Later That Same Day,**

 **The Destiny Islands, Early Evening**

' _And there he goes,'_ Sora thought to himself while looking towards his best friend. A calm expression was currently etched on the spiky haired teen's face. He silently watched as Riku slowly rowed away from the larger play island.

Lifting up his head, the other boy briefly locked eyes with Sora despite the fair distance presently between them. Letting go of one of his wooden paddles with his right hand, Riku lifted the appendage and slowly waved it from side to side above his head in farewell. The red and black clothed boy quickly returned the gesture with his own right hand. Kairi, who was sitting a short distance to Sora's right, repeated the motion while looking towards the older teen from her spot on the dock.

Lowering his arm a moment later, Riku gave his friends a firm nod as he once again grasped both of his wooden paddles. Holding one oar with each hand, the silver haired boy continued on his way. Along with his small rowboat, the island raised teen soon became obscured by the much larger bulk of the smaller play island.

Sora silently bade his best friend farewell once more. While lowering his arm back to its previous position, he mentally said, _'See you tomorrow, buddy.'_

With that out of the way, the red and black clothed boy leaned back slightly and slowly turned his head to the right. He stopped the motion as soon as he was looking straight ahead of himself. As he did so, the spiky haired teen was careful not to look directly at the very large white and yellow sphere known as the sun, which was now slowly falling towards the distant horizon. Sora didn't have any sunglasses in front of his face to protect his eyes from the giant orb's glare after all. Instead he tilted his head downward slightly and looked at the calm ocean surface. Influenced by the sun's light, the water had taken on a soothing shade of orange while a large collection of white sparkles formed a wide shimmering line towards the descending sun. The sky overhead also currently possessed an orange colored hue and the few clouds that still remained were dark grey in color at this moment in time. They were still far too few in number and positioned far too high in the sky for Sora to have to worry about a sudden downpour of rain taking place in the near future.

The spiky haired teen was currently sitting on the far end of the larger play island's small wooden dock. The lower half of his right leg was hanging off the edge of the wooden structure and Sora was lightly swinging his right foot through the air. His personal rowboat rested on top of the water's surface directly below the appendage, still tied to the dock by a short length of rope. The young islander's left foot was firmly planted on the pier's last wooden plank, with his toes coming to a stop just before the edge. The adjacent knee was pointing towards the portion of the sky directly above Sora's head and it was almost level with the spiky haired teen's chest. His left forearm was currently resting on top of it, forcing the knee down slightly with its weight. Sora's right hand was resting on a wooden plank located behind his torso and it kept the spiky haired teen from falling onto his back.

In contrast to her red and black clothed friend, Kairi was sitting with both of her lower legs falling off the edge of the wooden pier. Her hands were lightly clasped together between her knees and the redhead was currently sitting up straight instead of leaning back like her companion. Her rowboat, the only one besides Sora's own that was presently attached to the small pier, was currently located a short distance behind the two teenagers. It was tied to one of the dock's many legs by a small length of rope and positioned so the tip of its narrow front was facing towards the wooden pole.

Looking her way through the corner of his eye showed Sora that the auburn haired girl had a thoughtful expression on her face as she looked out at the water. The red and black clothed boy found himself wondering what she was thinking about, for lack of anything better to do. As if sensing his thoughts, Kairi chose speak up a short moment later.

The volume of her voice was slightly lower than usual when she spoke, as if the redhead didn't want anyone to overhear what she was saying. Without turning her head to look at Sora, she said, "You know, Riku has changed."

A small amused snort escaped from Sora, who put up a valiant but futile effort to contain it. Seeing Kairi turn her head to look at him with slightly narrowed eyes, the spiky haired teen threw a victorious smirk her way. With a teasing tone in his voice, Sora asked his red haired friend, "You're just noticing this now?"

Exhaling rather loudly through her nose in mock frustration, Kairi unclasped her hands and lightly shoved Sora on the shoulder with her left hand. The red and black clothed boy played along with the action. He theatrically waved his upper body from side to side as a low laugh burst from his throat. His actions caused a small smile to appear on Kairi's face. She giggled slightly when his movements came to an end, covering her mouth with her left hand as she did so. Sora smiled as he watched his friend regain control of herself. Placing both hands on the edge of the dock, one on each side of her waist, Kairi turned her gaze back to the water. Her own smile was soon replaced by a pensive look.

Noticing this, the small smile he was carrying vanished. Tilting his head slightly, the red and black clothed boy said, "You OK?"

The redhead didn't respond right away and when she did, it was with an unusually blank tone of voice. Still looking towards the ocean, she said, "It doesn't bother you, Sora? That Riku has changed?"

Sora just shrugged his shoulders at the question before slowly lowering his body towards the long rectangular planks of wood residing beneath him. Clasping his hands behind his head, the spiky haired teen used them like a makeshift pillow as he lay down on the dock. Having closed his eyes during the motion, the red and black clothed boy opened them as soon as he felt his fingers make contact with his hair. He gazed up at the orange sky above, counting out the few clouds he could see without having to turn his head in any direction. At the same time, Sora wiggled slightly in a manner reminiscent of a worm or snake in order to find a comfortable position on the pier. Both his feet remained in their previous locations.

Not talking until he felt fully comfortable in his new position, Sora said, "I admit, it does bother me a little. Riku does seem to like getting on my nerves a lot more than he used to. It can be frustrating to deal with sometimes… but I still think he's the same guy he's always been deep down. I'm sure of it."

"I see…" Kairi responded, sounding thoughtful. She didn't seem to know what else to say at the moment and just let her voice trail off. Turning his head slightly to the right, Sora looked towards the back of her head and shoulders while asking her a question of his own.

"Why are you so concerned about this, Kairi? People do change you know," the spiky haired teen told her, his tone sounding rather casual the entire time he spoke.

Quickly raising her hands off the wooden pier, the auburn haired girl twisted her upper body towards him. With a shocked expression on her face, the auburn haired girl gazed down at him.

With a cheeky smile forming on his face as they locked eyes, Sora decided to remind her that the two of them had changed as well in their own way. "The two of us aren't as short as we were back when we first met after all."

Staring down at the red and black clothed boy, the auburn haired girl's mouth opened and closed several times as her mind tried to process what she had just heard. The sight caused Sora to release a small chuckle as he turned his gaze back towards the sky. The sound seemed to help Kairi regain control of herself. She closed her mouth and glared down at her friend with narrowed eyes.

"… Jerk," was all she managed to say to Sora after a long moment.

She actually sounded like she meant it too and the spiky haired teen turned to look at her with a cocky smirk on his face. He didn't say it, but Sora felt a fair amount of relief when a soft smile formed on Kairi's face a moment later. Its presence was all he needed to see to understand just how serious her remark had been just now.

Closing his eyes, Sora adopted a mock hurt expression and placed his right hand over his heart. Both teenaged islanders started laughing at the action after a short moment of silence. His right hand however in the air slightly above his torso as Sora's body convulsed slightly. Meanwhile, as the joyful sound flew from her lips, Kairi resumed her sitting position from just before she turned to face Sora. Her fingers were tightly gripping the edge of the last wooden plank due to the force of her laughter.

HeOnce their amusement had died down, a comfortable silence settled around the pair. While Kairi once again looked out at the ocean, Sora placed his right hand back behind his head and gazed up at the orange colored sky. Not seeing any reason to break the silence, the red and black clothed boy slowly ran his gaze over the outline of a small cloud. To the spiky haired teen's blue eyes, this one vaguely resembled a fat fish.

"Hey, um…," he overheard Kairi start to speak, only for the redhead's voice to trail off after she had barely said anything.

His right eyebrow climbing slightly up his forehead, Sora lifted his head and looked towards the female islander. He could see that Kairi had lowered her head slightly and that she was now rubbing her hands together in the air between her knees. The manner with which she performed the action indicated that she was rather nervous. Subconsciously lowering his right eyebrow back to its usual spot on his face, Sora frowned slightly as he took in the sight.

' _She seems worried. Why?'_ The spiky haired teen thought to himself. He didn't particularly like it when the auburn haired girl, or any of his friends actually, seemed that way. In true Sora fashion, the red and black clothed boy decided to see what he could do to help. Out loud, he asked Kairi, "You okay?"

As if his voice was some sort of signal to move, Kairi suddenly did so. Quickly twisting her entire body around this time, the auburn haired girl placed herself on her knees while she turned towards Sora's location. Before the spiky haired teen could even blink, she lowered her face closer towards his own and slapped her hands down onto the docks. While roughly imitating a four legged animal, she looked down at Sora's face with an odd, almost manic, determination in her blue eyes.

"Sora," she suddenly called out to her friend, practically shouting the red and black clothed boy's name. It was only surprise that kept the other teen from flinching at the volume or making an attempt to pull himself away from Kairi in response to the noise. Ignoring his now wide-eyed gaze, the redhead continued speaking. Kairi sounded extremely earnest as she said, "Let's take the raft and go. Just the two of us."

"W-W-W-What?" Sora asked her, stuttering slightly over the word as he proceeded to gape at her in open mouthed astonishment. The spiky haired teen immediately thought that he had misheard her words and that they had just been a figment of his imagination. The look on his friend's face killed that idea as soon as it had formed. _'What is she talking about? It's almost time for us to go back to town.'_

Sure the raft was now both fully constructed and supplied for the trip but the two of them, along with Riku, had adamantly agreed not to set out until tomorrow morning at the earliest. They could have started earlier today, in the afternoon, but none of them had been feeling up to it once they were done collecting the supplies. True to Sora's expectations, Riku was the first one done but the spiky haired teen managed to return to the raft before Kairi did. Once the three of them were all together again, Riku had chosen that moment to be the one where he admitted that he wanted to write a goodbye note to his parents before they set out. The silver haired teen claimed he never found the time to do so before now. The realization that he hadn't bothered to even consider doing something similar himself shocked Sora. The spiky haired teen could tell that Kairi was in the same boat as him, given the expression on her face when Riku had first brought up the subject. And considering the two of them hadn't come near any sort of writing equipment yet, neither of them had completed this small task.

So why was Kairi suggesting that they take the raft and go now? It was going to get dark soon after all. While the spiky haired teen knew they were going to have to sail through such conditions eventually, he wasn't very thrilled with the idea of doing so right from the start of their journey. And most importantly, why was Kairi excluding Riku all of a sudden? That, more than anything else, didn't make any sense to the spiky haired teen. It was completely unlike her to suddenly do such a thing to any of her friends, much less Riku and Sora.

Before Sora had a chance to gather his thoughts and say something, Kairi suddenly started laughing. Right in his face. And she did so quite loudly. The auburn haired girl closed her eyes and even slapped the pier a few times with her left hand as she did so. Her torso swayed from side to side, looking like she might fall over at any moment. The only thing missing from this scene was the sight of fresh tears threatening to fall from her closed eyelids.

Realizing he had just been pranked, Sora's heartrate returned to its normal pace as an annoyed sigh left his mouth. An equally annoyed expression appeared on his face once the exhalation came to an end. Unable to see the look the red and black clothed boy was now giving her due to her eyes being closed, Kairi continued to laugh as she pulled her body back to its previous sitting position on the edge of the dock. Placing her hands to either side of the pier, she clutched the edge of the wooden structure with her fingers.

Having opened her eyes at some point while her back was turned towards Sora, the auburn haired girl's laughter trailed off just before she threw a wide grin over her left shoulder. She was clearly sending the new expression down towards her friend. With a completely teasing tone in her voice now, she said, "Just kidding."

Rather dramatically rolling his eyes, Sora turned his head and upper torso to the left, refusing to look up at her. He even closed his eyes for good measure. The red and black clothed boy's actions caused another short burst of giggles to erupt from the auburn haired girl's mouth. Despite his earlier annoyance, the spiky haired teen soon started to smile as well. Opening his right eye, Sora shifted his head slightly in order to observe Kairi over his right arm. He saw that the auburn haired girl had turned around her head around to face the ocean again while in the midst of her giggles.

As he much as he disliked being made fun of, the spiky haired teen did enjoy a good prank every once in a while. And Kairi didn't make an indirect pass towards his intelligence like Riku tended to do these days so it didn't sting as much. Therefore, Sora was willing to let this one go without a fuss. Relatively speaking, at least.

Still smiling, Sora turned his gaze towards the smaller play island. Over his shoulder, the spiky haired teen called out to his closest female friend. He said, "What's gotten into you? You're the one that's changed Kairi."

While he spoke those words, a faint tinge of amusement warred with an equally faint hint of exasperation for control of his voice. To the spiky haired teen's surprise, what he just said seemed to knock all of Kairi's humor out of her. Her laughter came to an abrupt end and its absence caused the smile on Sora's face to disappear.

' _Did I say something wrong?'_ he asked himself, nearly giving in to the sudden urge to turn around and look towards his friend. He hadn't intended to make her feel bad. The red and black clothed boy quickly relaxed when he heard his friend hum thoughtfully to herself.

After doing so for a short while, Kairi simply said, "Maybe…"

Sora hummed slightly, not liking how she trailed off again. The spiky haired teen turned his upper body around and set himself down on his back, once again looking up at the auburn haired girl's head and shoulders. He found these sudden mood swings of hers to be very unusual for the redhead. She was, in general, a very cheerful person after all. The spiky haired teen silently thought to himself, _'Maybe Riku was right about her being nervous about the trip. Either way, something seems to be bothering her.'_

He didn't say anything out loud just yet, wanting to give his friend the time she needed to gather whatever thoughts were floating around in her head right now. Kairi did not keep him waiting for long but neither did she turned to look at him when she finally started speaking.

After clasping her hands together between her knees, Kairi let another silent moment pass between the two of them before she spoke up. She said, "You know, I was a little afraid at first… afraid that we might have been making a big mistake by doing this."

' _She is nervous,'_ Sora realized, surprised by the discovery. His left eyebrow climbed slightly up his forehead while his blue eyes simultaneously widened in their sockets by a small amount as he continued to look at the back of Kairi's head and shoulders. The redhead had given away nothing to indicate that was how she felt in the spiky haired teen's opinion. She had just carried on like everything was fine while acting like her usual self throughout the project. Reluctantly, Sora thought, _'Maybe Riku is right. Maybe I do need to work on my observation skills.'_

Unaware of Sora's internal thoughts, Kairi continued speaking. Turning her head in order to look down at Sora with a surprisingly determined look in her eyes, the redhead declared, "But now I'm ready."

As Sora watched her with a slightly confused expression locked on his face, the redhead lowered her voice to a much more gentle tone. "No matter where I go… where _we_ go and what we see, I know I can always come back here."

The auburn haired girl's mouth formed a soft smile as she continued to look down at Sora. She brought her small speech to an end by gently asking her friend for his opinion. "Right?"

Relieved that Kairi wasn't about to admit that she was second guessing her decision to take part in the upcoming voyage, Sora fought down the urge to emit an amused snort. Such a gesture didn't feel appropriate. The spiky haired teen also knew it wouldn't feel right if he and Riku took off without her tomorrow. He just knew it wouldn't. The red and black clothed boy momentarily closed his eyes while shrugging his shoulders as best as he could with his current posture.

"Yeah, of course," Sora reassured his best friend, pulling his left hand out from behind his head and waving it slightly through the air as he spoke. The spiky haired teen sounded very confident as he said the words. Opening his eyes, Sora smiled up at her and said, "I really don't see how that wouldn't be possible."

The red and black clothed boy didn't bother saying that it would probably take them several days at least to come back whenever they decided to make the return trip. The spiky haired teen suspected that Kairi already knew that. Whether she did or not, the auburn haired girl's smile widened slightly in relief at his declaration. A moment later she turned her gaze back to the water and said, "That's good."

Those words only made Sora's smile widen slightly as he placed his left hand back underneath his head. The smile disappeared from his face when Sora heard the auburn haired girl's next words. Without turning her head around to look at the brown haired boy, Kairi made a request. "Sora… don't ever change."

"Um, what?" Sora asked her. He sounded, looked, and felt a little perplexed as he spoke. Either way, he suspected she wasn't talking about a physical change at this point in time. Was she asking him to avoid becoming like Riku?

Before the red and black clothed boy could press her for more information about what she meant just now, Kairi pulled herself to her feet. Somewhat surprised by the action, Sora pulled his hands out from beneath his head and used them to push himself into a sitting position on the pier. Pulling his left foot slightly closer to his torso, the red and black clothed boy used his arms to keep himself upright as he looked towards his friend. He had a slightly confused expression on his face the entire time.

Seemingly ignoring Sora, the auburn haired girl clasped her hands together behind her back and continued to gaze out at the ocean. With a rather dreamy tone to her voice, she said, "I just can't wait. Once we set sail… it'll be great."

Still looking up at his closest female friend, Sora's confused expression slowly turned into a more relaxed countenance once she finished speaking. He turned his gaze towards the ocean as well and a small smile appeared on his face as he did so. The brown haired boy couldn't stop himself from saying the words now bubbling in his throat and his voice was little more than a whisper when he spoke up.

"Yeah. It will be great. I'm sure of it."

* * *

 **Meanwhile, Over A Dozen Hours Earlier**

 **Disney Castle, The Library**

"Would ya apologize to Minnie for me? Thanks, pal," said the queen of Disney Castle.

While she spoke, her eyes were locked onto a thin parchment. While gently holding the fragile paper in front of her face with her right hand, Queen Minnie had just finished reading it out loud. This parchment was the same one that Donald had received from Pluto a few hours ago, when the court magician had gone to meet with the king in the audience chamber. The same one that had sent the court magician of Disney Castle into a frenzied panic. Despite speaking with a very soft voice, everyone in the royal library of Disney Castle heard the words their queen just said with perfect clarity. And none of them were feeling particularly comfortable after hearing what was written on the slim parchment.

After silently staring at said parchment for a long moment, Queen Minnie closed her eyes and sighed softly to herself. To those standing nearby, the noise sounded very worried. Once the sudden exhale died down, the anthropomorphic mouse gently placed the paper she was holding on to the large rectangular wooden desk standing in front of her. She left it beside the golden lamp, the only other object currently on the dark brown structure. Said lamp strongly resembled a large emerald flower standing on a pot, with its head still in a bud state and turned towards the top of the desk. The stem was curved slightly, causing the whole thing to roughly resemble a question mark as well.

The library itself was a large square shaped room. Primarily white in color, its floor and walls were decorated with soft grey squares that blended in with the white in a checkerboard style. There was only one way to enter and leave the room, which consisted of a pair of large grey doors surrounding by a thick golden rim. Each door was decorated with a small obsidian copy of the king's sigil. Set into the golden rim and position directly above both doors was a large round ruby.

Two rather large portraits rested against the wall, one on either side of the large door. Each image depicted what might have been one of the king's ancestors and they possessed a light brown wooden frame. Both figures resembled anthropomorphic mice. One of them had the appearance of an elderly figure with a large grey mustache on his face. He was dressed all in brown in a manner akin to a mountaineer and carried a large light brown walking stick in his right hand. His counterpart appeared to be much younger and was carrying a small smoking pipe in his left hand. Standing up straight with his right arm behind his back, this mouse was wearing a fancy red coat, bright red pants, orange shoes, a wig of orange hair fashioned to resemble two cylinders on either side of his head, and black hat. The first mouse stood in a dark green background while the second one stood in a light velvet colored void. Both were turned towards each other and, do to their positioning, were looking directly towards the large door standing between them.

Resting opposite the door, and simultaneously taking up over half of the large room's space, was a massive white bookcase that stretched all the way to the ceiling. It possessed an extremely wave appearance, sections of it stretching closer towards the door while others pulled all the way back towards the hidden wall behind the bookcase. Numerous shelves were visible and every last one of them was filled with books on various subjects. No two books were exactly the same in terms of size or thickness, never mind in possession of a matching cover. A large golden fireplace and chimney rested against the left wall and it was positioned slightly closer towards the door than the book shelves. Opposite this structure and behind the desk were several tall thin windows. Each of these windows possessed a rounded top and they formed a dotted single file row within a large golden frame. Two tall candle stands that strongly resembled brown tridents stood in separate corners of the room and they were positioned near the wall housing the library's sole entrance. None of the candles they bore were currently lit.

Also located near the large brown desk, the only one in the entire library and behind which stood a high backed wooden chair that strongly resembled the king's golden throne, was a small doggy bed for Pluto. A small empty light blue bowl signed with his name in black ink was resting beside it. The yellow furred dog was currently asleep in said bed, snoring softly as he rested his head on his forepaws. Given that he was currently locked in the realm of dreams, Pluto was the only individual present in the library that had not been paying attention to a single thing Queen Minnie had just said.

Standing beside Goofy directly in front of the large doors, Donald looked at the faces of those around him with a small frown on orange-yellow bill. Next to Donald, standing slightly to the spell caster's left, Goofy had a forlorn expression on his face and the knight's body posture was far more slouched than usual. His hands were gently clasped together in between his knees and his head was turned towards the glass-like floor where he proceeded to have a silent and morose stare down with his own faint reflection.

Daisy meanwhile was looking at Queen Minnie's back while she stood a small distance away from the anthropomorphic mouse. The female anthropomorphic duck had a very worried expression on her face as she looked towards her queen. She kept alternating between nervously wringing her hands and tightly clutching her skirts with them. Donald couldn't see Queen Minnie's eyes from where he stood, given that she was almost fully turned away from him at the moment. But the spell caster could see that her mouth was pulled into a small frown and she was clutching her hands in front of her. The queen usually only did that when she was worried about something. Or someone.

Standing together, the four of them were currently forming a loose pyramid-shaped formation on the library's floor. Given that they were standing very close together, the court magician and captain of the royal knights formed the tip of this formation.

At Donald's quite fervent insistence, no one else besides Pluto was allowed to be in the library at this time. Having been caught in the royal gardens by the queen and her lady-in-waiting before he could grab Goofy and disappear, the court magician had no choice but to divulge the contents of the small parchment to the pair. He couldn't very well refuse a direct order from the queen after all. However, the spell caster also didn't want to cause a panic in the castle by making the contents of the parchment Pluto had given him public knowledge. He had only handed over the paper once the four of them, joined by Pluto, had arrived in the library and Queen Minnie had acquiesced to his request to have this place emptied of all other life. Even the enchanted brooms had been forbidden entry at this time.

Several of Goofy's best men were currently stationed right outside the door. It went without needing to be said that they were there to keep everyone else out and prevent any unwanted eavesdropping. Despite Donald's low faith in Goofy's own diligence, the royal knights had proven themselves time and time again to be a highly disciplined military force. The court magician did not believe a single one of them had their ears pressed against the door in an attempt to listen in right now.

Seemingly of its own accord, Donald's gaze fell down to the parchment responsible for the small group's less than happy mood. The slip of paper was a letter his king had written at some point in time before the ruler of Disney Castle had vanished while no one was looking. Given how the queen herself had last seen him during the late evening hours of yesterday, the king must have disappeared in the middle of the previous night. The letter he left behind in Pluto's care was addressed to Donald himself and the words written on that paper confirmed that the king's disappearance had not been a kidnapping like the court magician had initially feared. Rather, his royal majesty had left the castle of his own free will. And his majesty had been in such a rush to depart that he was unable to leave anything but this note behind to explain his actions.

The slip of paper was currently too far away for Donald to read it from where he stood near the doors but the anthropomorphic duck knew the words written on its surface by heart right now. The white feathered spell caster had read it a couple of times by himself in the audience chamber before rushing off to find Goofy after all. Unwilling to be the first one to break the silence that had fallen upon the group, Donald waited for someone else to speak up. He kept himself occupied by reciting the king's message in his head until somebody said something.

 _Donald,_

 _I'm sorry for rushing off without tell you why, but I just didn't have the time. There's trouble brewing, pal. Big trouble._

 _I'm not sure why but the stars have started blinking out, one by one. I don't know how long this has been going on but it can only mean a disaster is on its way. I hate to leave you all without saying goodbye but I've gotta go look into this._

 _I am truly sorry Donald but by the time you have read this letter, I will be long gone. I also need to ask for a pretty big favor from you and Goofy._

 _There's someone out there with a "key" – the key to our survival. I think you already know just what kind of key I'm talking about. I need you and Goofy to find its bearer and stick with whoever it is. By the time you catch up to him - or her - this keybearer will probably be in the middle of an adventure. Help him out. Watch his back and protect him, okay? The other worlds likely aren't as safe as they used to be right now._

 _I don't want to alarm you, but if the situation is as bad as I think it is then we need that key or we're doomed!_

 _Take the gummi ship and go to Traverse Town. The coordinates to that world are already in the ship's memory banks. Once you get there, look for an old friend of mine. His name is Leon. If luck is on our side, he will be able to help you find the new keybearer._

 _P.S._

 _Would ya apologize to Minnie for me? Thanks, pal._

The letter had been signed with a small green stamp that resembled the king's own symbol. And the king's personal handwriting left no doubt in Donald's mind that he was the one who had written this piece of paper.

Sighing heavily, the anthropomorphized duck lowered his gaze to the floor while wondering what his king had _neglected_ to write down in his haste. While his majesty could be very impulsive, this was a whole new level of recklessness even for him. How bad did he think the situation currently was? Did it really excuse him doing such a reckless stunt?

Considering the mood of everyone around him, the spell caster wasn't so sure it did. However, it was rare for the king to overestimate the importance or danger of a situation such as this. So whatever was going on in the other worlds must be really bad right now. Resting the urge to cross his arms, Donald closed his eyes and thought, _'Stay safe out there, your majesty. At least until me and Goofy catch up to you.'_

There was no doubt in the court magician's mind in regards to whether he was going on this mission or not. While the letter might have worded it like a request, it was still one that had come from his king and therefore something he couldn't refuse. Loyalty to his liege and close friend demanded no less than total acquiescence from the anthropomorphic duck. Donald just hoped Goofy's usual demeanor didn't drive him through the roof, much less drag the two of them into a situation they wouldn't be able to get out of, before they found either the king or this key.

Donald was pulled from his thoughts when he heard Daisy speak up, his special sweetheart breaking the awkward silence with her voice. The court magician was a little ashamed to hear a faint trace of fear in her voice, understanding there was nothing he could really do about it at this time. Donald opened his eyes and lifted his head so he could look towards the female anthropomorphic duck. The spell caster saw Daisy rubbing her hands together while her own eyes were now locked on the floor.

Directing her question towards no one in particular, Daisy said, "Oh dear, what could this mean?"

No one said anything right away, none of them apparently having a good answer to the question. Donald certainly knew he didn't. His majesty's letter was far too oblique for him to understand anything but the fact that his king believed the worlds - all the worlds - were currently in some sort of danger. The hyperactive fellow unfortunately did not deign to explain the threat, if he even knew what exactly the danger was before he took off. All the court magician knew was that he and Goofy had their own job to do and they needed to leave as soon as possible in order to assist their king.

Focusing his gaze on Queen Minnie, Donald saw her move her head in a manner that suggested she had just sighed very quietly to herself. As she did so, the white feathered spell caster saw Goofy send a worried glance his way out of the corner of his left eye. Donald ignored the knight's gaze and kept his own focused on the queen.

She deigned to speak up only after a long moment had passed and there was a faint tone of worry present in her voice as she did so. Without turning to look at her friends and colleagues, Queen Minnie softly announced, "It means… we'll just have to trust the king."

' _He hasn't exactly left us any other choice in the matter,'_ Donald somewhat bitterly thought to himself. The spell caster just barely managed to keep himself from saying the words out loud.

That particular line of thought also caused the court magician to develop a strong urge to cross his feathered arms over his chest and start taping his foot in irritation. For once, the spell caster found the strength of will to force his frustration down. The others didn't need to deal with one of his temper tantrums right now. Fortunately, Donald's worry for his king's safety proved surprisingly helpful in keeping his temper in check.

Hearing the familiar sound of armor pieces clanking together, Donald turned his head to the left and looked towards the one responsible for the sudden noise. Goofy had unclasped his hands and, while leaving his right arm at his side, he had brought his armor covered left arm towards his face. The captain of the royal knights had a pensive look on his face as he rubbed his mental incased thumb and forefinger against his chin.

Seemingly oblivious to the fact that everyone but Pluto, who was still asleep, was looking his way right now, Goofy said, "Gawrsh, I sure hope he's all right."

' _Me too,'_ Donald thought, the anthropomorphic duck just barely managing to keep himself from saying those words out loud as well. A quick glance at Queen Minnie and Daisy showed him that they were thinking similar thoughts. Deciding he had more than enough of the uneasy atmosphere, Donald told himself, _'All right, enough mopping about. Time to be the hero, Donald.'_

Without a word, the court magician of Disney Castle straightening his bearing and smiled kindly towards his queen. His blue eyes shined with confidence the spell caster barely felt as he firmly placed his right hand over his heart. Calling out to the anthropomorphic mouse, he loudly said, "Your highness."

Queen Minnie started slightly, unclasping her hands as she did so. She seemed a little taken aback by the sound of the anthropomorphic duck's voice. Whether it was because of the high volume or the confident tone Donald just used the spell caster did not know. However, she did slowly turn around to face him.

After waiting for the queen's gaze to settle on him, the court magician continued speaking. He confidently said, "Don't worry. We'll find the king and this _key_."

' _It must be one of those keys,'_ Donald privately thought to himself. Like his King had suspected he would, the white feathered duck did have a strong suspicion just what kind of key he and Goofy were going to be looking for.

To the spell caster's private delight, his words had an immediate effect on the queen. The worry in her eyes rapidly faded away once Donald finished speaking. A small smile formed on her face as Queen Minnie started looking like her usual self again. It was a transformation that caused the anthropomorphic duck to feel a good deal of relief. Turning his head to the right slightly, Donald could see that Daisy also looked more relaxed as well. She was presently moving to stand directly beside the queen, holding on to the front of her skirts with both hands as she did so at a sedate pace.

"Thank you, both of you," said Queen Minnie, speaking with her normal cheerful tone of voice. She nodded her head once towards Donald and then once toward Goofy as she spoke. If she noticed Daisy coming to stand directly to her left, the anthropomorphic mouse gave away no indication that she had.

The court magician's smile widened slightly at the queen's words and he turned his gaze towards Daisy, who was smiling softly around her bill while looking back at him. Donald started to make a request of his sweetheart. "Daisy, can you take care of the-"

"Of course," Daisy calmly interrupted him, already aware of what Donald was asking of her. She sounded confident in her ability to look after Queen Minnie all by herself. It was her job after all and she had been doing it for many years now. Still speaking with a warm voice, Daisy said, "You be careful now. Both of you."

Donald's smile grew slightly on his bill. He energetically nodded his head in response to Daisy's words. Deep down, he was feeling a little relieved that his sweetheart wasn't going to put up a fuss and start protesting against the king's request. Seeing that neither of the two ladies was against the idea of Donald and Goofy taking off on an adventure across worlds, the court magician of Disney Castle believed he had no reason to delay his departure any further. Having to go through with this somber meeting, one the spell caster had desperately tried to avoid after he first read the king's letter, had already slowed him down enough.

Turning his head towards Goofy, Donald was about to tell the anthropomorphic dog it was time for them to go. He stopped himself when saw Queen Minnie suddenly perk up out of the corner of his eye. The female anthropomorphic mouse looked like she had either just remembered something important or had a splendid idea. A small smile broke out on her face as Donald closed his bill and refocused his gaze on her.

"Oh, and to chronicle your travels, he will accompany you," the queen gently told Donald and Goofy. As she spoke, Queen Minnie lightly gestured towards someone supposedly standing to the right of her position with her arm. She also turned her head to the right as well.

However, that action and her words made no sense to Donald. There was nobody standing in the spot where she had just indicated. The only thing currently to the right of Queen Minnie was the large brown desk the king had placed in the library in preparation for a moment when he might need to suddenly write something down while looking through the books on the library's shelves. There didn't appear to be anyone standing behind the high backed chair either. Besides, Queen Minnie herself had assured him that the room had been cleared of unnecessary eavesdroppers and Donald had yet to spot any during his stay here. So who is she talking about right now?

"Over here," a rather high-pitched male voice suddenly called out of nowhere. Donald barely heard it but was quite confidant the sound wasn't his imagination. And it seemed to be coming from the wooden desk.

Blinking several times, Donald focused his gaze on the large object. His blue eyes narrowed as he saw that something was repeatedly jumping up and down on the desk, whatever it was doing so right by the corner pointing towards the spell caster. This thing was so small that the anthropomorphic duck almost missed it. Leaning forward slightly, Donald narrowed his blue eyes and tried to identify the leaping object. To his surprise, the object was in fact a very small person resembling an anthropomorphic cricket. One that was currently trying to get his attention by jumping up and down while waving his small arms beside his head. He, going by his voice and attire, was also dressed in a rather formal looking suit.

The newcomer possessed a rather round head and large oval shaped eyes. He also had olive colored skin, extremely thin black eyebrows, and two small hands. Both hands were equipped with three fingers and a thumb. A royal blue top hat rested on the cricket's head, somehow staying in place in spite of his rapid jumping. An orange band was attached to the hat, wrapped around the base of the small object, while white gloves covered the newcomer's hands. The cricket man also wore a high collared white shirt underneath a red vest, the latter of which was adorned with a single pink button on the front. A yellow ascot could be seen protruding out of the vest's low collar and the cricket wore a long sleeved black blazer on top of the vest. The blazer came equipped with two small pointy coat tails on the back and they almost reached down to the back of the cricket's knees. His lower body and legs were covered in simple tan colored pants while orange shoes covered his feet. The shoes were black on the toe tips and they possessed no visible buttons or shoe laces. Grey socks could be seen poking out of the cricket's shoes, though much of their forms was obscured by his pants. If the small critter was wearing any sort of belt, it was currently hidden underneath his vest.

There was also a discarded umbrella resting to the right of the anthropomorphic cricket's location. The tip of the object was pointing towards the king's letter and its small size clearly identified the thing as a part of the talking cricket's outfit. Rather plain in design, it was primarily light red in color. However, its pointy tip and curved handle were colored bright orange instead.

' _Who are you? What are you doing here?'_ Donald thought, watching the small figure with wide eyes. The spell caster had never seen this person before in his life. And he had spent the last several years quite certain that he had mesmerized the faces, if not the names, of everyone currently residing in Disney Castle. So who was this person and where had he come from?

Seeing that he had achieved his goal of gaining Donald's attention, the olive skinned cricket brought his jumping to a stop. He didn't appear to be the least bit winded by the physical exertions he had just undergone. Taking a hold of his hat with his right hand, the olive skinned individual pulled it off his head and held his right arm vertically in front of his torso as he gave a small bow.

"Cricket's the name," he introduced himself, sounding rather chipper as he did so. "Jiminy Cricket, at your service."

' _When did he get here?'_ Donald thought to himself in confusion while watching the now identified Jiminy Cricket place his hat back on top of his head. Beside the spell caster, Goofy greeted the small newcomer by cheerfully waving his right arm. The gesture from the royal knight earned him a kind nod from the cricket in return. Ignoring this, the court magician asked himself, _'Was he here the entire time?'_

That was quite possible given the Queen's awareness of his presence. Donald would have asked her why she would allow a complete stranger to listen in on the king's message but she clearly knew who this Jiminy Cricket was, even if Donald and Goofy did not. It still didn't explain his presence here or why Queen Minnie had kept silent about it until know.

His question must have shown on his face as Queen Minnie smiled apologetically at him. She said, "Jiminy is a guest in the castle. He has been staying with us for little over a week now and… it is very likely his arrival was what first alerted the king to the danger growing beyond out world."

' _He's been here for over a week and nobody told me?'_ Donald thought to himself in disbelief. Exchanging a quick glance with Goofy, the court magician was a little relieved to see that the tall knight was in the same boat as him, judging by the surprised expression on the taller animal's face. The court magician didn't think his pride could accept the idea of Donald being left out of a secret like this when the captain of the royal knights was not. _'Wait. That still doesn't explain how he got here?'_

"The circumstances of Jiminy's arrival are… unique" Queen Minnie admitted, still speaking this entire time. "And he has his own reasons to accompany you on this quest. He is quite an avid reader and a skilled writer as well. I do not believe there is currently anyone in this castle more equipped than he to chronicle your travels."

"Aw. Why thank you, your majesty," Jiminy told her.

Still holding his hat with his right hand, he gave another a bow. This time it was directed towards Daisy and the queen instead of Donald and Goofy. The action caused both ladies to burst out giggling. Queen Minnie covered her mouth with both hands as she did so while Daisy only used her right. Donald's right eyebrow twitched slightly at the sound of his sweetheart's laughter, feeling as if the little fellow was trying to charm the female anthropomorphic duck duck. Realizing he was being silly a moment later, the spell caster lowered his head and let loose an aggravated sigh.

' _Well, we are going on a journey. And dangerous one if the king's hunch is correct,'_ Donald privately admitted to himself as he raised his head. And that meant there was going to be multiple chances for the spell caster to perform heroic deeds. The court magician of Disney Castle didn't dislike the idea of having them correctly recorded. _'Having an official chronicler coming along doesn't sound too bad, now that I think about. And his writing skills must be good if the queen was willing to give the job to him.'_

For Queen Minnie herself to actually vouch for Jiminy's penmanship was no small thing. Reading was one of her favorite past times after all and all the time she spent with her round nose buried in a book had caused her to develop a keen judgement towards someone's writing style. Besides, having the little cricket come along would give Donald plenty of time to figure out who he actually was and how he got to the castle. Maybe the court magician will even find out why no one told him about the cricket's arrival in the first place.

' _Still… I'll have to make sure he doesn't try and record the embarrassing stuff,'_ Donald thought, a small frown appearing on his face as he cast a sideways glance towards Goofy. With the tall anthropomorphic dog coming along for the ride, humiliating events Donald could have easily avoided if he was travelling on his own were bound to happen. _'Hopefully, nothing too embarrassing will happen.'_

It was a faint hope but the white feathered duck held onto it like it was a life-line. He was still mentally scared by some of the shenanigans Goofy had dragged him and the king into when they were younger. Donald also found himself hoping that the little cricket wasn't going to get in the way during a fight. He didn't look like much of a fighter and the king's letter clearly implied there would likely be trouble waiting for Donald and Goofy out in the other worlds. Still, the white feathered duck was quite confidant in his magic and Donald could, reluctantly, admit that Goofy was pretty good at fighting with that shield of his. They were unquestionably the best team from Disney Castle the king could possible send to protect this new keybearer. Short of the king himself of course. Or all three of them together.

' _It will be just like the old days. Acting like royal bodyguards,'_ Donald thought to himself, almost smirking at the thought. That had been quite an adventure. Though the king had been with them during that one too. That thought destroyed Donald's momentary amusement and he decided to be serious again.

"Welcome aboard Jiminy," Donald called out to the small cricket, holding out his right hand as he did so. The palm was turned towards the library's white ceiling. If his tone was slightly unwelcoming, nobody said or did anything to point it out.

It was hard to tell but Donald was quite sure the small figure's smile widened slightly on his small olive skinned face as he turned to look towards the anthropomorphic duck. Neatly placing his hat back on his head, Jiminy nodded his head and said, "Thank you for having me."

Donald just nodded his head at those words, not feeling like there was anything more to say. Turning his gaze towards the queen, Donald made a silent vow. _'Hang in there, your majesty. We'll find this new keybearer. And you too.'_

Seeing that Donald was focusing his attention on her, Queen Minnie smiled kindly at him. She clearly understood and accepted that it was time for the journey to begin. Referring to both herself and Daisy as she spoke, the anthropomorphic mouse said, "We hope for your safe return. Please… help the king."

Knowing a royal order when he heard one, regardless of her phrasing and kind tone, Donald immediately straightened his bearing. With a strong determined look on his face, the court magician of Disney Castle placed his right hand over his heart in a gesture reminiscent of a salute. The action seemed to make Queen Minnie's smile widen slightly. Turning his head to the right, Donald made eye contact with Daisy. His special sweetheart nodded at him and Donald's lips pulled back into a smile at the sight.

However, he noticed out of the corner of his right eye that there was someone now standing to the left of Daisy. Donald felt a mixture of surprise and confusion at the sight. Who else was here now and when did they get there? He certainly hadn't seen anyone standing there earlier.

The smile Donald was wearing vanished completely when the white feathered duck saw that it was in fact Goofy standing on Daisy's other side. Before the court magician of Disney Castle could check to see if this was some sort of clone by glancing to his left, he caught the unusually stern look in the tall anthropomorphic dog's eyes. While the big guy could be serious if the situation demanded it, it was still a rare expression for him to have. Without saying a word, the captain of the royal knights proceeded to slap his feet together and stand up straight. He swiftly raised his right hand to his forehead and silently wished Donald luck with a traditional military salute. The sight of it absolutely infuriated Donald, the white feather duck immediately coming to understand that Goofy thought he was staying behind. Did he not understand a word the Queen had said when she read the king's letter to them?

' _You big palooka,'_ Donald seethed. He swiftly marched towards his colleague and reached for him with his right arm. Before Goofy could so much as blink, or even throw the smaller animal a confused look, Donald grasped the knight's armored forearm with his right hand.

"You're coming too," the spell caster loudly snapped at his friend. The very instant he was done speaking, Donald started marching towards the library's door while dragging Goofy along behind him.

"H-Hey, Donald," the knight called out to his friend as he struggled not to fall off his feet, having lost his balance thanks to the sudden movement. He didn't sound very alarmed or afraid while he did so. Instead Goofy's voice was totally relaxed and he was treating this event like an everyday occurrence. That wasn't too far off the mark given Donald's temper and his low tolerance for Goofy's antics. "Can you let go of me?"

"No," Donald sharply barked at him, tightening his grip on Goofy's arm as he continued walking towards the library's sole doorway. The taller animal's tone had only made him angrier and the white feathered duck couldn't trust Goofy to remember he is supposed to be accompanying him on this journey right now.

From where he stood on top of the library's single desk, Jiminy Cricket jumped in place while holding his hands beside his head. There was a panicked look in his eyes as he realized that Donald and Goofy seemed to have forgotten he was coming along and that the two of them were now leaving him behind. Landing on both two feet, the small olive skinned figure quickly turned towards his small umbrella. Bending down slightly, he took hold of it by the handle with his right hand. Holding it in a reverse grip, the tip pointing towards the desk, the small cricket quickly straightened his posture. He placed his left hand on top of his blue hat, pinning it in place on his head with the appendage.

"Wait for me," Jiminy cried out, his voice directed towards Donald and Goofy. He was already leaping off the desk before he finished saying those three words. Landing gracefully on the floor, the olive skinned cricket soon regained his balance. Once he did, he started running after the pair, moving as fast as his short legs could carry him while keeping his left hand on his hat.

Behind him, Queen Minnie closed her eyes and covered her mouth with both hands. She couldn't help but giggle softly at the trio's antics, finding them quite enjoyable. Beside her, Daisy simply lowered her gaze towards the floor and released a long suffering sigh.

* * *

 **A Short Time Later,**

Despite Goofy's repeatedly pleading for him to do so, a fair amount of time passed before Donald finally calmed down enough to let go of his colleague's left arm. By that point, the anthropomorphic duck was relieved to see that the captain of the royal knights finally understood that he was supposed to accompany Donald on this mission. The spell caster was privately grateful for that. He would not admit it but dragging Goofy along by the arm was quite tiring work.

While the anthropomorphic duck was dragging his colleague through several long corridors inside Disney Castle, they had walked past more than a few members of the castle's staff. None of them, not even Goofy's own men, had so much as blinked at the spectacle. They had all grown used to such sights a long time ago because these antics were a frequently occurring event in Disney Castle. It was a small miracle for the castle to go through a whole month without someone seeing this scene at least once. Even the King couldn't do anything to put a stop to these events though he always seemed more amused than worried by the sight. Most of the staff just assumed that Donald needed to get somewhere fast and that Goofy was supposed to accompany him for one reason or another so they didn't bother to comment on it. They believed the spell caster wasn't in the mood to be patient with Goofy and his much more relaxed approach to, well, everything.

It was only after the trio had walked past thirty members of the castle staff - a collection that consisted of an irregular number of guards, maids, and butlers - that the anthropomorphic duck managed to reign in his temper and release the captain of the royal knights. He understood such actions were rather improper given their stations in Disney Castle but his infamous temper had once again gotten the better of him. Slapping his hands together once he let go of Goofy, the white feathered duck tried to erase the event from his mind. As was usually the case when such incidents came to an end, the spell caster felt rather embarrassed by his conduct.

Not bothered in the slightest by Donald's recent manhandling of his person, Goofy just casually followed him towards their current destination. He even offered Jiminy a ride shortly after Donald had let go of his arm. The small humanoid cricket had been running after the pair the entire time Donald was dragging Goofy along and he had been clearly driven to the point of exhaustion by the effort. The little fellow was more than grateful for the kind offer when it came and he quickly took Goofy up on it. The captain of the royal knights had been effortlessly carrying him along ever since.

Only a few members of the castle staff took notice of Jiminy Cricket's presence due to his small size. One had even almost stepped on the olive skinned cricket. The event had only been avoided because Jiminy had, at the last moment, loudly said, "Excuse me! Coming through!"

Despite clearly wondering who he was, none of the castle staff protested or inquired about Jiminy's presence. He was clearly accompanying Donald and Goofy - two very important figures at Disney Castle - of his own free will so he couldn't be a nefarious invader or thief. Plus, given how furious Donald looked at the time, they had all decided it would probably be better for their health if they stayed quiet and carried on with their own duties.

Right now the newly formed trio were all by themselves as they walked down a long spiraling staircase. Well, Donald and Goofy were walking while Jiminy was hitching a ride on Goofy's head, using the knight's helmet as a makeshift chair as he did so. A single wall circled around the trio, forming a deep tube-like structure that went on and on for a good while. The staircase itself was dark grey in color and it lacked any sort of parapet despite the long drop. It was however wide enough for Donald and Goofy to walk side by side without one of them getting too close to the edge. The circling wall itself was divided into eight separate sections by the presence of eight long rectangular bars, each of which possessed the same grey hue as the staircase. The spires climbed all the way up to the top of the staircase from the very bottom of that same structure and the areas between the evenly spaced spires were covered with slightly curving red bricks.

Large neon lights in the shape of the king's symbol were set into different sections of the brick wall, replacing several bricks as they did so. Each of these lights were constantly emitting a bright pink glow and they were the only source of illumination in this otherwise dark stairwell. However, where every second light should be located, instead resided a rather large image resembling a blue and black crown. Rather than being inserted directly into the middle of the bricks like the neon lights, these images were resting on the circling wall in a manner resembling giant stickers. The crown-shaped images and neon lights were kept separate from each other by the presence of the descending staircase and the eight grey spires dividing the wall.

Donald and Goofy were currently descending these steps because they needed to reach the large room at the base of it to begin their journey. While not exactly a closely guarded secret, the very existence of this room was known only to a few of the castle's inhabitants. These included, of course, the court magician and captain of the royal knights given how they were also the king's closest friends and royal advisors. And now, the individual known as Jiminy Cricket would soon be able to count himself among this small number of individuals.

Having naturally assumed the role of party leader, Donald was leading the way. Goofy was walking a few steps behind him and the anthropomorphic dog was currently in the middle of a conversation with Jiminy Cricket. The two of them weren't trying to keep their talk private and the volume of their respective voices allowed the white feathered duck to easily overhear everything they were saying. Donald himself stayed quiet and listened to them speak in silence. Though he would never admit it, the spell caster was pleased Goofy had taken the initiative and gently coaxed Jiminy's story out of the small cricket. It helped Donald avoid having to do the same thing himself while simultaneously answering many of the questions he had about the newcomer. However, that did not mean the white feathered duck liked everything he was hearing.

"Gawrsh, Jiminy. Your world disappeared?" Goofy asked his new fried, his usually cheerful tone replaced by one filled with a mixture of awe and worry.

The two of them had gotten to the point where Jiminy was explaining how he first arrived in Disney Castle. The news that he was from another world had previously filled the tall knight with awe but now he and Donald felt only sympathy for their new acquaintance.

From where he currently sat on top of Goofy's helmet, the olive skinned cricket slowly nodded his head. There was a sorrowful expression on the little fellow's face. The cricket's legs were hanging over the edge of the helmet's beak-like nose tip and he was pinning his small umbrella against his lap through the use of both his gloved hands.

Looking down at Goofy's round nose as he spoke, Jiminy said, "Yes. The king believes that is what happened. How or why I do not know. It's all a very big blur in my head but I am certain that whatever caused my world to disappear was very terrible. It's just a feeling I have and it won't go away. As for everyone I know… we became scattered in the confusion. I don't know if they are alright or even where they have gone. As far as I can see, I am the only one who made it to this castle."

"But how did you come here? To this Castle?" Goofy gently pressed him, sounding curious.

Donald strained his ears while he descended the staircase, wanting to know that piece of information as well. If Jiminy Cricket was in fact a denizen of another world that had somehow been teleported to Disney Castle like he claimed, than the anthropomorphic cricket must have come here through the use of magic. Such an occurrence implied that there was a potential breach in Disney Castle's defenses that needed to be found and eliminated as soon as possible, for the good of all the castle's residents.

"…I don't know," Jiminy admitted after a long moment of silence. Donald almost snapped at the smaller animal for saying that but he could sense the honesty in the cricket's voice.

' _Of course it wouldn't be that easy,'_ the spell caster thought to himself instead. The white feathered duck fought down the urge to sigh in dismay as Jiminy continued speaking behind him.

With a low tone of voice, the olive skinned cricket said, "The king and the queen found me asleep in the gardens a few days ago. Apparently, they were out for a walk and the king almost stepped on me. When I woke up, they said that I was just lying there unconscious and that I seemed to be badly hurt. The king used his magic to nurse me back to health and I woke up soon after that."

' _In the gardens? A few days ago?'_ Donald thought to himself with narrowed blue eyes. He recalled seeing Queen Minnie and the king sitting down in the gardens a little over a week ago while walking through one of the castle's corridors. They had been rather close to one of the grass statues and sitting side by side on the ground while looking towards what Donald assumed to have been a couple of yellow flowers. _'Was that when they found him?'_

The spell caster could admit to himself that he hadn't gotten a good look and had been in something of a hurry, having been going to the library to find a specific book to help him with a new spell. The king and queen taking some time to themselves to admire the flowers was also a fairly common occurrence at the castle so the court magician hadn't thought much of the sight and simply brushed it aside in his haste. Perhaps if Donald had bothered to go down there and speak to his king at that time, he would have learned about Jiminy's arrival much sooner.

Behind him, Jiminy told Goofy, "We spent quite a lot of time talking to each other. We started our chat in the gardens but eventually moved to the king's study. It didn't take the king long to come up with the theory that I was from another world."

' _That must have been quite a shock. Learning you've somehow been transported to another world against your will,'_ Donald thought, unable to fully suppress the urge to form a small frown around his bill. The spell caster was willing to give the cricket the benefit of the doubt regarding his intentions if both the king and the queen were going to vouch for him. Though, he would still do his best to keep an eye on the small figure just to be safe. It never hurt to be careful.

"I remember that the king seemed quite worried when he came up with that theory though," Jiminy admitted, lowering his head as lengthy sigh burst from his lips. Donald had a feeling he knew what the olive skinned cricket was thinking right now.

The court magician suspected that meeting Jiminy was what first set the king on his path to investigate whatever was going on in the other worlds. He found himself wondering just how much the queen participated in said investigation before the king's sudden disappearance, given that they were both practitioners of magic, and that they had found Jiminy together. It wasn't like the king to lie or keep secrets from Queen Minnie after all. The anthropomorphic duck also wondered why the two of them hadn't bothered to ask Donald for his opinion on the matter. Closing his eyes, the court magician pushed aside the sudden irritation he felt while thinking that the king and queen didn't value his thoughts as much as they used to any more. He doubted that was the case but his pride still stung a little.

Focusing on the present, as well as their imminent departure from this world, the anthropomorphic duck wondered if his companions were aware of a specific rule they all needed to adhere to. He decided it was time to join the conversation and bring it up, just to be safe. They were almost at the bottom of the staircase after all and the flat dark grey floor was coming up to meet them.

Opening his eyes, the court magician called out to the captain of the royal knights. "Goofy."

"Yeah, Donald?" Goofy responded. He sounded slightly surprised by Donald's sudden interruption in his talk with Jiminy. Continuing his own descent without breaking stride, the armored figure said, "You need something?"

"Do you remember what his Majesty told us about other worlds? About the rule we must never break, no matter what," Donald asked his friend and colleague. As he spoke, the spell caster turned his head slightly so he could see the taller anthropomorphic animal out of the corner of his eye and over his left shoulder. He was careful to keep the majority of his gaze on where he was going.

"The rule we must never break?" Goofy mused aloud to himself. The tall anthropomorphic dog sounded a little confused as he did so. He tilted his head to the right, forgetting about Jiminy's presence on top of his helmet while he brought his right hand towards his face.

"Wow," Jiminy cried out, throwing his hands into the air as his perch shifted beneath him. He continued to clutch his umbrella by the curved orange handle with his right hand but let go of its tip with his left hand. The small humanoid cricket started to slide slightly to his right due to the sudden shift in the helmet's bearing. Rapidly kicking the air with his feet, Jiminy threw his upper body to the left and grabbed hold of the helmet's edge with his left hand. To the rather oblivious Goofy, he said, "Careful there, big fella."

The captain of the royal knights didn't seem to hear him. In fact, the anthropomorphic dog suddenly perked up. Ignoring, or just not hearing, Jiminy's sigh of relief over the fact that his perch was back to its usual position now, Goofy raised his right hand to the side of his head and held up a finger.

"Oh, right… I gotcha," he jovially announced. Lowering his right hand back to his side, Goofy continued speaking to Donald's back. "You mean while we're in other worlds, we can't let on where we're from."

' _Oh, thank you,'_ Donald thought, a soft sigh bursting out of his bill. He directed his gratitude to whatever deity was watching over them at this moment. _'He remembered.'_

Telling people you were from other worlds was strictly prohibited. Donald wasn't entirely aware of the reason why but he suspected it was a good one. His king wouldn't be willing to enforce it if there wasn't and he had a generally very relaxed approach to any sort of rules. Though, the spell caster wondered why his liege was willing to excuse Jiminy breaking it. Was the situation so bad that such a rule had been rendered obsolete? Or was it solely because the king already knew of other worlds and Jiminy's had apparently disappeared?

Realizing that Goofy had continued talking behind him, the white feathered duck strained his ears in order to overhear what the tall anthropomorphic dog was currently saying. He was less than pleased when he heard the knight say, "We gotta protect the world border."

"Order!" Donald snapped, verbally correcting the last word Goofy had just said as he came to the base of the stairs. Shaking his head from side to side out of dismay, the court magician came to a stop on the cold floor and wondered to himself, _'How can he keep getting those two mixed up?'_

The captain of the royal knight didn't seem to notice his colleague's annoyed tone of voice.

"Right. World Order," Goofy cheerfully agreed, laughing his signature laugh as soon as he was done speaking. He finished his own descent and came to stand beside his colleague, gently clapping him on the back with his left hand. Well aware he wouldn't be able to say or do anything about the anthropomorphic dog's attitude, Donald simply released a long suffering sigh.

' _This is going to be a long trip, isn't it?'_ Donald thought to himself, the words sounding rather mournful in his head. He resumed walking and now moved side by side with Goofy. The taller animal unconsciously slowed his longer strides to avoid leaving his shorter friend behind. Shifting his eyes slightly to the right, the spell caster gazed towards the knight calmly moving in step with him and wondered, _'Why, your majesty? Why did you give this mission to the both of us?'_

A long rectangular shaped corridor with a high ceiling was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. There was no door blocking the way so it looked like a large hole in the wall from above. Moving down this corridor, Donald saw that the walls were still made of bricks while the ceiling was some sort of metal tarp. There were no crown shaped images lining the walls here but the same neon lights from the staircase were still present. Slightly smaller in size, they formed two dotted rows. One row was located on either side of the trio and each light was positioned so they directly faced their opposite number in the opposing line.

It wasn't a very long corridor and Donald could already see the end of it. A large blue wall awaited them there and it housed a large golden rimmed doorway resembling a three pointed crown. A cut out resembling a four pointed star rested on the tip of each point. The entire crown-shaped doorway looked slightly stretched horizontally and it reached halfway up the wall. Foregoing the usual doors that needed to be manually opened by twisting the doorknob, the doorway possessed two thin metal doors that would slid open on their own once Donald and Goofy got close enough to it.

Hearing Goofy hum to himself, Donald focused his attention back on the anthropomorphic dog. He saw that Jiminy had regained his previous sitting posture and that Goofy had tilted his head back while a thoughtful look adorned his face. The spell caster wondered to himself, _'what are you thinking about now, you big palooka?'_

Apparently sensing Donald's gaze on him, Goofy lowered his head slightly and look towards his colleague. Lightly gesturing towards himself with his left hand, the tall knight said, "I guess we'll need knew duds when we get there."

"Oh, you mean new outfits?" Jiminy asked him, leaning forward slightly where he sat. He seemed to be trying to look Goofy in the eyes. Blinking slightly. Donald ran his gaze up and down his colleague's form before looking at his own attire.

' _He's right,'_ Donald thought to himself, a small frown forming around his bill. _'Why didn't I think of that myself? We're going to need new clothes if we want to try and blend in on other worlds.'_

Pushing aside his irritation, the anthropomorphic duck lightly waved his right hand and said, "Just leave it to me. I'll take care of it with my magic."

"Thanks, Donald," Goofy cheerfully said to him. The anthropomorphic duck just waved away his gratitude with his right hand.

"I believe I am quite fine," Jiminy told the spell caster, nodding his head towards the white feathered duck as he spoke. Donald didn't say anything but he agreed with that idea. It was mostly him and Goofy that needed to change their outfits. Most people probably wouldn't even notice the anthropomorphic cricket, on account of his small size.

Not another word was said between the three companions as they approached the crown-shaped doorway. The two metal doors slid open as soon once they were only two steps away and Goofy stopped for a brief moment in order to allow Donald to once again take the lead. Not bothering to slow down or say anything himself, the white feathered duck stepped through the opening and entered a large brightly lit hangar. The doors shut behind the trio as soon as Goofy stepped through.

The hangar itself was a massive room almost half the size of the audience chamber. Possessing sky blue painted walls, the hangar had multiple yellow pipes and brown gears scattered about the place in a chaotically disorganized manner. Several long rod-like mechanical arms with multiple elbow joints hanged from their ceiling. Their ends were tipped with large hands covered in white gloves. Said hands only possessed three fingers and a single thumb. Two of them resembled a right hand and two of them resembled a left hand.

The control room for the entire hangar was hanging from the wall by a thick blue pole on the other side of the room from Donald. It roughly a resembled a small box-shaped house with a pyramid for a roof and fours sides consisting primarily of large half-oval shaped open windows. Directly to the spell caster's left, a large golden trophy was inserted into the wall and it was adorned with a small black copy of the king's emblem. Opposite the trophy was a large steel gate in the shape of the king's emblem, the doorway surrounded by a thick light grey outline that resembled half of an egg. And the crown jewel of the hangar was currently in the center of the floor, hovering slightly above a large circular shaped grey panel with a dark pink outline.

Created from pieces of a mysterious meteor the king had dubbed gummi blocks, the vessel had a primarily red paint scheme. Several times larger than Donald and Goofy, the cockpit had a glass dome ceiling and it rested on top of a large crimson block. A second slightly thinner red block was positioned underneath this one and it had two small cylindrical grey thrusters attached to its rear end. A long rectangular square that had been flipped slightly in order to possess a straight beak-like shape poked out from the front of the two blocks. Its tip was sharpened, causing it to loosely resemble a crimson pillar on top of a skyscraper that had been thrown down on one edge. A thick yellow bar of paint was wrapped around nose of the ship just before it started sharpening. Directly underneath the nose was the so-called gummi ship's only weapon, a small dark grey cannon capable of firing low-powered energy blasts in rapid succession. Pocking out to the sides of the vessel were two small orange cubes with a rough squared z-shape. Two white wings poked out of each of these cubes, one on top and one on the base of the outer sides. From the front of these cubes poked out a fairly long yellow cone with a rounded crimson tip.

This space ship was known as the _Kingdom_. It was the first gummi ship the king had ever built and it would be the vessel Donald, Jiminy, and Goofy would use throughout their voyage across the worlds. Hopefully, this new keybearer would be joining them very soon.

Having stood on a small stone porch when they first entered the room, Donald and Goofy turned to the left and ascended down a small stone-like staircase. Passing underneath a half-donut shaped green arch, the two of them now stood on a slightly longer metal platform with a rounded end. Marching over towards said end, Donald stopped in front of a yellow pipe that was poking out of it. It was hollow on the inside and the spell caster will now use it to transmit his voice to the hangar's control room.

Leaning forward slightly, Donald briefly placed his right hand up beside his bill when he said, "Hello up there." Placing both hands on his hips, he added, "Donald Duck to launch crew. We're here to board the gummi ship. Let us in anytime you're ready."

There was no verbal response from the two engineers inside the small control room but two of the mechanical arms started moving towards the anthropomorphic animals a moment later. Smirking, Donald raised his arms to the side in preparation for one of the giant hands to pick him up and carry him towards the gummi ship. After turning his head to the left he could see that the glass dome of the space fairing vessel's cockpit had flipped open, likely due to someone in the control room pressing a remote control.

Hearing a surprised grunt from Jiminy, Donald turned and saw that the lead hand had taken a hold of Goofy by the rump. Holding him upside down, it proceeded to carry the tall knight towards the gummi ship while its counterpart continued its descent towards the court magician. While Goofy seemed nonplussed by the arrangement, the sudden shift had caused Jiminy Cricket to fall off his seat. Moving quickly, Donald managed to catch him with his right hand before he hit the stone floor.

"Thanks," the olive skinned fellow told the court magician, sounding immensely grateful as he looked up at Donald. Despite his still lingering distrust of the smaller figure, Donald smiled kindly at him.

"Aw, don't mention it," said the white feathered duck just the mechanical arm reached their location. He let loose a loud, and quite affronted, quack as the massive appendage firmly grabbed him by the rear and flipped him upside down while carrying him and Jiminy Cricket towards the gummi ship.

' _Great,'_ Donald thought, quite irritated by his predicament. He crossed his arms while an upset look resided on his face as his entire body slowly moved through the air.

The court magician's large hat somehow managed to stay on his head in spite of the fact that he was hanging upside down. Unknown to Donald, he had unintentionally started to squeeze Jiminy with his grip, something the humanoid cricket was quite against.

"Too tight, too tight," Jiminy Cricket called out, only his head and left arm visible amongst Donald's thumb and fingers. Jiminy's arm was being used to keep his hat from falling off his head and the olive skinned fellow sounded like he was struggling to breathe.

' _Whoops,'_ Donald thought to himself. He immediately loosened his hold on the anthropomorphized cricket, an action that drew a relieved sigh from the much smaller individual.

Before either of them could say anything to each other, they arrived at their destination. Rather than set them down gently, the mechanical hand promptly dropped them a short distance into the cockpit. Donald twisted his body around so he would land on his left side, keeping his right hand pointed towards the sky in an effort to keep Jiminy out of harm's way. The spell caster barely managed to complete the maneuver in time and landed with a hard grunt, all the air knocked out of his chest as he reflexively closed his blue eyes.

"Gawrsh, are you all right Donald?" he heard Goofy call out to him a moment later. Opening his eyes, Donald saw the tall knight coming towards him.

Located just behind Goofy, the anthropomorphic duck could also see three large throne-like white chairs set in a triangle formation. Said formation was pointing away from Donald and the white feathered duck could see the lights from the control panel shimmering behind the farthest one.

"No," Donald bluntly told his friend as Goofy came to a stop directly in front of him. Lowering his right arm, the court magician released his hold on Jiminy and waited for the cricket to jump off the appendage before he climbed to his feet. The spell caster angrily said, "I will be having words with Chip and Dale later. They should consider themselves lucky it will be over the radio."

"Gawrsh," Goofy said, sounding unaffected by their recent treatment. Donald privately wondered what it would require to make the taller animal mad or take something personally. "I don't think they meant any harm by it."

"I don't care," the spell caster sharply snapped back, marching in between Goofy and Jiminy as he moved towards the lead chair. Sighing angrily once he was past the pair, he said, "Let's just get this over with."

He felt more than saw a large shadow fell over him and forced himself to stop walking. Turning his head to the right, Donald caught a glimpse of a large yellow figure falling down from above before who or whatever it was landed in front him, effectively blocking his route towards the lead throne-like chair. It took the spell caster only a moment to recognize the figure.

"Pluto," he called out, a surprised expression on his face as he took in the sight of the king's loyal pet.

Standing between Donald and the three chairs, the yellow furred animal turned his head towards the anthropomorphic duck and happily barked at him in greeting. There was an innocent, almost child-like, grin locked on his face.

Chuckling loudly to himself, Goofy to stand beside Donald. He quickly placed his right hand on the back of Pluto's head and gave it a gently rub. Still smiling, Pluto closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. Not taking his eyes of his fellow dog, Goofy said, "Guess he wants to come with us."

Pluto's eyes snapped open and he instantly let out a loud bark. One that sounded a lot like a non-verbal affirmation of Goofy's sentence. The angry look that appeared on Donald's face once he heard that sound was a clear indicator about how much he favored that idea. Before the anthropomorphic duck could say anything, everyone in the gummi ship's cockpit heard a loud siren go off in the hangar. In the next instant, the glass dome of the cockpit rematerialized out of thin air after its location was temporarily surrounded by a shimmering blue light that faded away as quickly as it came. Its presence effectively trapped the four of them – Donald, Goofy, Jiminy, and Pluto – inside the gummi ship. Immediately after the glass dome reappeared, the _Kingdom_ started to rumble beneath their feet.

Lifting his gaze to look ahead of himself, Donald saw that the gummi ship was rising slightly into the air. It was also turning sideways slowly. The tip of its nose, which had been previously been pointing towards the stone-like porch he and Goofy had set foot on when they first came into this room, was now turning to face the hangar gate. Said gate was in the midst of opening up.

A heavy sigh escaped Donald's bill at the sight. Shaking his head from side to side, he closed his eyes and threw his hands into the air a moment later. After opening his eyes and lowering his arms, he despondently said, "Fine, he can come. The more the merrier. It's time to go anyway."

Ignoring Pluto's happy barking at his announcement, the court magician of Disney Castle walked past the yellow furred animal and marched straight towards the lead chair. His movements were only slightly hampered by the gummi ship's shakings.

"Welcome aboard Pluto," Goofy loudly called out from where he was standing, finishing that statement with his signature laugh. Donald just shook his head slightly from side to side as he reached his destination, ignoring the bark that erupted from Pluto's jaw.

Sitting down on the lead chair, Donald took hold of the crimson colored steering wheel placed directly in front of him. Looking up, the white feathered duck saw that the gummi ship's repositioning was about to come to an end. The hangar gate was already fully opened. Beyond its outline, Donald could see a long rectangular-like brick hallway, the floor of which was decorated with three separate runway lights. One dotted line was in the center of the floor and another was located on each side of it. The gummi ship's rumbling came to an end as its nose came to be pointed directly towards the tunnel, which was more than wide enough for the vessel to fly through.

"Get ready, folks. We're about to lift off," Donald called over his shoulder. Leaning forward slightly, he reached out with his right hand and flipped a small green colored switch. The two engines on the back of the vessel came to life, emitting orange flames as the ship once again started shaking.

Hearing the sound of two pairs of feet scrambling behind him as he leaned back, the spell caster looked over his right shoulder. Pluto barked from where he now sat on all fours atop of the white throne-like chairs, a happy expression still fixed to the yellow furred dog's face. Looking over his right shoulder, Donald saw that Goofy had cheerfully sat down on the other chair. The tall knight had scooped up Jiminy Cricket at some point and the olive skinned figure was currently sitting on the knight's right shoulder. For some reason, he was looking to the left instead of facing forward like the rest of them.

"Hey, fellas. It looks like some folks have come to see us off," he called out. His words caused Donald's blue eyes to blink several times.

' _What?'_ he asked himself. The anthropomorphic duck slowly turned his head in order to look towards his right. Gazing past the glass dome, Donald saw that the little cricket's observation was correct.

His eyes widened slightly when he saw that Queen Minnie and Daisy had indeed come to see them off. Both of them were standing side by side on the stone-like porch, the crown shaped entrance into the hangar directly behind them. The spell caster noticed that while Queen Minnie looked like her usual cheerful self, Daisy seemed rather worried. She looked up at Donald with clasping her hands together in front of her torso. Touched by the gesture, Donald felt a warm smile spread around his bill. Lifting up his right hand so she could see it, the spell caster gave Daisy a thumbs up while simultaneously winking his left eye. The gesture seemed to cheer her up as Daisy's shoulders noticeably relaxed while a small smile formed on her own yellow-orange bill.

Chuckling softly to himself, Donald faced forward again and resumed gripping the steering wheel with both hands. A determined expression settled on his face as the white feathered duck thought to himself, _'Let's go find that key.'_

"Here we go," he loudly called out to his fellow travelers, earning a bark from Pluto and a smile from the other two. Leaning forward and pushing the steering wheel away from his torso as he did so, the spell caster bellowed, "BLAST OFF!"

"Here we go!" Donald heard Goofy cheerfully cry out behind him, the words nearly bringing a smile to his face.

However, to everyone's surprise, the gummi ship suddenly froze in place. It stopped shaking in mid-air and the flames emitting from its engines died down, leaving it frozen in place above the circular platform. Before Donald and Goofy could ask what was going on, a large red object appeared in the gateway before them. It was so big there was no possible way they could fly through the tunnel behind it without first crashing into the newly arrived object. Said object appeared to be a bright light in the shape of an arrow and it was pointing straight down.

Outside the gummi ship, the platform directly beneath it quickly split open. The grey sections vanished beneath its thick pink outlines, revealing a long cylindrical hatch that seemed to go off forever. Whatever force was keeping the gummi ship frozen in mid-air promptly disappeared once the hatch was fully opened. Before Donald and Goofy had a chance to realize what was happening, the gummi ship promptly fell into the new hole. Unfortunately for its occupants, the sudden jerk caused it to flip upside down and the top of its cockpit was now pointed straight towards their unknown destination.

Having forgotten to put on their seatbelts, the four travelers fell out of the throne like chairs as soon as the gummi ship fully entered the hatch. Goofy slammed onto the glass first, lying flat on his stomach with all four of his limbs spread out on the clear surface. Pluto slammed into his fellow dog less than an instant later, pinning him against the glass dome and narrowly avoiding hitting Jiminy, who was lying right by Goofy's head, when he did so. Donald proceeded to land on his back against the yellow furred animal's torso, drawing a surprised bark from Pluto. As the gummi ship continued to plummet, the anthropomorphic duck and captain of the royal knights both let loose their signature cries.

' _I WILL be having strong words with Chip and Dale,'_ Donald vowed, having a good idea who was responsible for this situation. This was nothing like the heroic start to their world spanning journey the spell caster had envisioned. _'They are really lucky it will be over the radio!'_

Despite the rather awkward start, the gummi ship would eventually complete its passage through the cylindrical hatch. Once it had done so, Donald quickly retook control of the ship and sent it flying off into the ocean of stars. And its current destination was none other than the world known only as Traverse Town.

* * *

 **Present Time,**

 **The Destiny Islands, Evening**

As he stared down at the lone white parchment resting before him on his writing desk, one grim thought found its way through Sora's head.

' _... I can't do this.'_

With a discontented sigh bursting from his mouth, the spiky haired teen released the small blue pen he was holding with his left hand and proceeded to lean back in his chair. He draped his right arm over the back of the small wooden seat and the young islander's discarded jacket, which was draped on top of it. The spiky haired teen's left hand fell onto his left knee as he tilted his head back and looked towards the ceiling. His blue eyes quickly caught sight of the single small brown ceiling fan. The object in question was just gently spinning in place, its four arms slowly moving in a counter clockwise rotation while the red and black clothed boy looked in its direction. The gleam in his blue eyes implied that Sora was hoping the object held something he sought.

He didn't find what he was looking for there. Or anything at all for that matter.

The red and black clothed boy ignored the soft sound his recently discarded pen was making while it rolled down the surface of his desk. The small parapet like juncture on the bottom edge of the desk caught the thing before it could fall towards the floor. The white paper Sora had been attempting to write on for quite some was left untouched where it lay. Not a single word had been engraved on its surface. The thing seemed to glow faintly as it bathed in the light of the small desk lamp, the only source of illumination currently present in Sora's bedroom. The parchment may as well have been silently laughing at Sora, considering how he had been sitting in this chair and do nothing but stare at it for almost half an hour now. That was how frustrated the red and black clothed boy was starting to feel.

' _I can't do this,'_ Sora thought to himself after a moment, not caring that he was repeating his previous statement. The young islander closed his eyes and brought his left hand up to cover his face. _'I can't think of what to write down.'_

It had been roughly an hour since Sora parted ways with Kairi and returned home. Despite it still being a rather early evening hour in the middle of summer, the sun had already vanished beyond the distant horizon. Due to its absence, the Destiny Islands were now covered in near total darkness. Barely noticing this, the spiky haired teen had all but locked himself in his bedroom while he tried to write a letter to his adoptive mother. Sora had been hoping to make one that would provide a sufficient explanation as to why the brown haired boy felt he needed to go on this journey with his friends and simultaneously serve as an adequate apology for not telling her what the three of them were up to before now. But no matter how hard he tried, the red and black clothed boy hadn't been able to inscribe even a single sentence onto the white sheet of paper.

It wasn't that Sora never had any ideas about what to say over the last hour. It was just that the words he came up with kept feeling way too hollow to his heart. They all felt weak and insufficient. So, the spiky haired teen didn't write anything down out of fear that he would somehow mess it up and need to start over again.

"Why is this so hard?" Sora whispered lowly to himself, pulling his hand away from his face. Opening his eyes, the young islander roughly pushed himself out of the chair. Sick of sitting down, he started pacing between his desk and the door. His arms were clasped behind his lower back as he moved and the spiky haired teen paid no attention to the scattered articles of clothing decorating his floor as he stepped over a few of them. "It's just one letter. What's the big deal? Pull it together, Sora."

Were he here now, Riku would probably make a quip about how talking out loud to oneself was a sign of insanity. The sudden thought did not help Sora calm down and a small frown worked its way onto his face as he came to a stop in the middle of his bedroom. Before he could say anything else, the spiky haired teen heard his mother's voice call out to him from beyond the closed door.

"Sora, come on down. Dinner's ready," she yelled at him, her voice slightly muffled by the walls and distance currently set between them. Normally, the promise of food would have had the red and black clothed boy racing down the stairs as quickly as he could go. Tonight, his inability to write a simple letter was ruining his appetite.

Rubbing the back of his head with his right hand, Sora closed his eyes. Opening them a moment later, he loudly called back to his adoptive mother. "Coming mom!"

' _Maybe some food will be good for me,'_ Sora thought to himself. He was well aware that this would likely be his second to last home cooked meal in a long while. The thought made him slightly sad as his mother was an awesome cook in Sora's humble opinion. Lowering his hand from the back of his head, the spiky haired teen started slowly turning in place and taking in the sight of his bedroom. _'It's not like I am having much luck with this right now. Maybe seeing Mom again is what I need to help me figure out what to say.'_

As if by their own accord, the red and black clothed boy's blue eyes fell upon a small wooden model as soon as he finished talking to himself. The object was shaped like a pirate ship and it was resting on a dark blue shelf poking out of the very same wall his writing desk rested against. Shoved into the corner, the shelf was rather high up the wall. High enough that Sora would have to stand on either of his chair or his bed in order to reach the model pirate ship. Currently resting on the deck of the small toy craft were two brown plushy figures. One vaguely resembled a young boy while the other was of a girl. To Sora's eyes, they almost looked like him and Kairi right now.

' _Haven't touched those in a long while,'_ Sora admitted, wondering why he was even looking at the ship and the plushy figures it was carrying right now. Unbidden, Kairi's words from earlier entered his mind.

 _I just can't wait. Once we set sail… it'll be great._

The tension seemed to ease out of Sora's body when he heard that and the spiky haired teen visibly relaxed. A small smile found its way onto his face as an amused thought circulated through his brain. _'Heh, look at me. Needing a couple of old toys to cheer me up. Riku and Kairi will certainly get a kick out of this.'_

Turning back to the door, Sora was about to head down for dinner when he heard an odd sound. It sounded vaguely like a crash and seemed to have come from his left. Turning that way, the red and black clothed boy finally noticed that he had left one of the two windows past his bed very slightly open. The left window was fully closed while its counterpart was poking out slightly. Outside Sora's house, the Destiny Islands were almost completely invisible thanks to the darkness of the night.

' _No wonder it feels a little chilly in here right now,'_ Sora thought to himself. The red and black clothed boy had been under that impression that said feeling was an illusion prompted by the absence of his jacket. He started heading towards the windows, intending to close them while a small part of him wondered what that sudden noise was.

As he came to stand beside his bed, Sora saw a flash of purple and white light suddenly appear in the distance. The sudden light disappeared as quickly as it came and it emanated a similar crashing sound to what he had previously heard when it became visible. Were it not for the faint stinging feeling in his eyes, the spiky haired teen would be convinced that the entire thing was a brief figment of his imagination.

' _What was that?'_ Sora asked himself. Narrowing his eyes, he leaned forward slightly as another flash of that same color erupted. This one appeared in a slightly different location and it seemed to resemble a jagged line. All of them had. As the newcomer faded away, another such glowing crack appeared in the night sky without warning. Having a hunch as to what was going on, Sora thought, _'Lighting?'_

As if to confirm his theory, more and more such bolts continued to erupt in a ragged and pattern less manner in the distance. Thanks to their brief illuminations, Sora finally became aware of the absence of any stars in the night sky. Their absence was soon revealed to be the result of numerous dark clouds covering the sky. Far more than there had been earlier, the underbellies of several clouds were revealed every time a lightning bolt flashed in the distance.

"A storm?" Sora asked himself as he placed himself on his knees on top of the bed. The words were little more than a whisper as they left his mouth. "Where did this come from all of a sudden?"

Without expecting or receiving any answer to his sudden question, the red and black clothed boy started leaning forward. He reached out for the open window, intending to close it. However, he stopped when he noticed the shadowed outline of the play islands being illuminated by the lighting. The great bolts of electricity seemed to be avoiding the town entirely and congregating there, almost circling around the smaller isles.

A sudden horrifying thought struck Sora and he pulled back from the white framed windows as if they were diseased. Forgetting to keep his voice down due to a sudden surge of panic in his chest, Sora yelled, "Oh no. The raft."

He and his friends had done nothing to protect it should a storm suddenly break out over the islands, leaving it out in the open every time they finished their work for the day. The three teens hadn't seen the point in doing so since the weather had been very friendly for the past few weeks. It appears nature had chosen the worst possible time to have a change in attitude.

"Sora, did you say something?" the spiky haired teen vaguely heard his mother call out to him. He paid the voice no mind and continued to stare at the play islands, his blue eyed glued to their darkened forms. Only one thought was going through his head right now.

' _I've got to get over there. If the raft gets destroyed, all the work we put into it will have been for nothing. I can't let that happen,'_ Sora thought. Pulling himself off the bed, he quickly moved towards his chair and retrieved his black and red colored jacket. Shrugging it on, the spiky haired teen started moving towards the door. However, he froze just before he reached his destination and thought to himself, _'Crud. I can't go out that way. Mom is going to see me. And she is expecting me to come down and eat dinner with her at any moment. There is no way she is going to let me up and leave, even if I did tell her about the raft.'_

Turning around, the red and black clothed boy immediately started scanning the room for a new way to leave the house. One that would hopefully enable him to depart with his mother seeing him do so. After turning his head from side to side a few times, Sora's blue eyes once again fell on the white framed windows. In the next moment, the red and black clothed boy's gaze fell down to his bed. More specifically, it came to rest on his bed sheets.

' _That will work,'_ the red and black clothed boy thought to himself. He immediately started marching towards the bed. Taking a hold of the sheet, he turned his head to the door and called out to his mother. "Sorry, mom. I'll be down in a minute. There's something I need to take care of first."

"All right, but be quick. If you take too long, the food will get cold," his mother's voice came through the door, sounding much louder than before. She must have been coming up to get him and had just finished climbing the stairs when he called out to her.

Ignoring all of that, Sora quickly got to work.

Almost half an hour later, his mother had enough of waiting around and she came looking for him. Pushing open the door as she marched into the spiky haired teen's bedroom, the spectacle wearing woman loudly called out to the boy and said, "Sora, what are you doing up here? Dinner is…"

Her loud voice, which carried a fair amount of irritation, trailed off as she took notice of the fact that her adopted son was still nowhere in her line of sight. Turning her head from side to side, the spectacle wearing woman continued to fail in locating Sora. She did however notice the now wide open windows resting on the wall to her right. And she did not miss the makeshift rope composed of torn bed sheets that was hanging out of it. One end of the colorful chord was tightly wrapped around one of the bed's short legs. The other end fell out of sight beyond the bedroom wall.

"Sora?" the woman said to no one in particular, now sounding very confused. And more than a little afraid as she took in the strong winds and scattered thunderbolts raging outside the house. Stepping up to the foot of Sora's bed, the woman's spectacle covered eyes caught sight of something the spiky haired teen had not noticed earlier.

Swallowing thickly as she looked towards the sky, the woman asked herself, "What is that?"

* * *

 **And cut.**

 **Things are finally heating up. I know Sora might seem a little OOC at the start of this chapter but I wanted to stress a difference between the teasing he engages in with Kairi compared to the ones he does with Riku. I wanted their remarks toward one another to be more casual, with less potential to be regarded as an insult, like the ones between Riku and Sora.  
**

 **As for the letter to his mother, looking back, I found it a little weird how obsessed he was with finding Riku and Kairi but he never once gave any thought to everyone else from the islands. I can understand him having to do that for the sake of a video game but for someone who claims he doesn't want to lose any of his friends, it feels a little weird Kairi and Riku were the only ones he was looking for during Kingdom Hearts 1. The letter was my way of showing that Sora actually did care about his adoptive mother's feelings and that he wanted her to know that. However, like all teenage boys, once he sets his mind on something he refuses to allow anyone to tell him no and simply charges on ahead.**

 **As for the rewrites I did to Donald and Goofy's scenes, I found it a little weird how Donald and Goofy just accepted Jiminy off the bat after learning he was from another world and joining them on their journey. That scene in the library was clearly the first time he had met the pair in the Kingdom Hearts story line. I could see Goofy doing it without a care but not Donald. This won't become a major theme however as Donald will quickly become distracted by his interactions with Sora and Goofy, along with all the heartless they will be facing.**

 **I have also decided I will be going ahead with some OC worlds and replacing one of the worlds from the original Kingdom Hearts game with a new one entirely. Don't worry, the world I am replacing is further down the line and what I have in mind won't change the story line too much. Canon events on that time frame will be maintained while Sora and the gang will have an unexpected encounter with a heavy hitter from the Final Fantasy series. That's enough spoilers for now but feel free to guess what world I am replacing and who our mystery guest is. Hint: he's from a game that came out after the original Kingdom Hearts.**

 **Banjofan: thank you for your kind words in your last review. It gave me the strength to see this chapter through to the end. While it is not my favorite, I hope you enjoyed reading chapter seven of Kingdom Hearts - Awakened Fate.**


	9. Chapter 08

**Hi folks. Welcome to the next chapter of Kingdom Hearts - Awakened Fate.**

 **Allow me to apologize for the long wait. I ended up suffering a severe case of writer's block over how to start this chapter after posting the previous. Coupled that with all sorts of things popping up in my personal life during the summer along with getting my hands on new video games and movies, I ended up having very little free time to write. And the amount I had ended up going to my unpublished Rising of the Shield Hero fanfic. I got my muse for my story back earlier this week and finished this chapter today.**

 **Anyway, here is chapter eight of my first fanfiction story.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the any characters or other creations that are a part of the Final Fantasy franchise, the Kingdom Hearts franchise, the Disney Franchise, or the Fire Emblem franchise. This story was created solely for the express purpose of providing entertainment for fun and the chance to improve my abilities as a writer.**

* * *

Kingdom Hearts – Awakened Fate

Chapter 08 – The Darkness Arrives

 **Later that night,**

 **The Destiny Islands**

It had taken Sora a very short amount of time to tear apart his bed sheets and fashion a makeshift rope out of them. Aside from not being able to make it in time to save the raft, the teen's biggest worry during the binding process was making so much noise that his mother would start to wonder what was going on and come looking for him again. Fortunately, despite what some of the other kids believed, the red and black clothed boy could be quiet when he had a reason to be quiet. He just tended to get excited very easily, which made him loud and reckless. Tonight, however, he was overcome with worry for the raft he and his friends had worked so hard to build. It hadn't been easy on his nerves but Sora was able to resist the impulse to simply leap out the window and create his makeshift rope while moving as quietly as he could.

Once he had finished creating the long line, the brown haired boy had quickly tied one end of it to his bed. He wrapped the rope around the small wooden leg on the corner closest to his bedroom door. After taking a split second to check that the knot was secure, the blue eyed teen had then climbed onto his bed while grasping the rest of the rope with his left hand. Once he was on his knees before his bedroom window, Sora had used both hands to push the opposing frames out as wide as they could go.

Resistance had been a lot tougher than young islander expected it to be. The wind had noticeably picked up while he was working. The air outside his house seemed to be growling like some sort of angry beast while it angrily scratched at Sora's face and arms with a cold breeze. As this happened, thunder kept on roaring in the distance. Unwilling to be denied, Sora had grit his teeth and persevered against the uncooperative weather. He winced slightly when the frames of his window banged against the outer sides of his house but didn't bother to take a moment to wait and see if his mother had heard anything and come to check on him.

Instead the red and black clothed boy, thoroughly convinced his departure had been delayed long enough by this point in time, hastily threw the end of his makeshift rope out the now open window. The wind simply knocked the rope back into Sora's face and the surprised teen had almost fallen off his bed as he tried to remove the offending cloth from his eyes. Another two attempts to simply toss the line out the window ended in a similar manner. Frustrated and annoyed, Sora quickly wracked his brain for a solution to his new predicament. While he did so, the brown haired boy twisted his upper body around and scanned his bedroom.

When his blue eyes landed on a fairly large toy cube sitting on the floor by its lonesome, the spiky haired teen had an idea. He quickly lied down on his side and reached for the object with his right hand. Pushing himself into a rough seiza sitting position on the bed once he had a firm hold on the toy, Sora dropped the cube on top of his knees and swiftly tied the end of his rope around it. Once the toy was tightly secured, the young islander grasped it with his left hand. Stretching his arm out to his side, Sora leaned out the window and casually dropped the wooden object towards the ground, using it like a weighted stone to drag the majority of the makeshift rope out the window. His new plan worked though the angry wind caused the toy to move wildly through the air as it fell. Fortunately for the brown haired boy, it never once touched the side of his house before it reached the ground. He doubted his mother would have heard the impact even if it had.

With his immediate goal in acquiring a way to sneak out of his house achieved, Sora wasted no time in taking a hold of the rope with both hands and he climbed out the open window. He didn't bother to take a moment to reconsider his decision to head out in this weather. With his feet pressed against the side of his house, Sora climbed down the rope as quickly and quietly as he could.

He knew if his mother found out what he was trying to do, she would definitely stop him. She had always been slightly overprotective of her adopted son. It had taken her a while to get used to and accept the play fights he often participated in with the other boys. Luckily for the spiky haired teen, he didn't have to worry about her simply looking out a window and seeing what he was doing since there weren't any besides his own on this side of the house. The only way she would have caught him was if he had made too much noise during his descent.

In an effort to stay quiet, the brown haired boy had been forced to go at a much slower pace than he would have liked to. The wind, seemingly angry with him, had also grown even fiercer than before. The raging gales seemed to almost enjoy slamming into Sora. They kept trying to either throw him into the distance or flatten him like a pancake against the side of his house. He had lost his footing more than a few times due to the former, causing him to nearly hit his head on the wall during the latter as he fought to regain it. At one point, Sora had even been forced to let go of the rope with his left hand and plant it against the wall of his house to keep his face from slamming into it. All in all, it was an uncomfortable experience for the young islander.

The only good thing he could say about it was that the storm clouds above his head hadn't decided to start raining while he was trying to sneak out of his house. The only things they bothered to spew were the random bolts of lightning in the distance, most of them still flashing much closer to the play islands instead of the town.

After climbing halfway down to the ground, Sora had grit his teeth in frustration and simply dropped the rest of the way. Landing on his feet, the teen hissed slightly because his right foot had pressed down on a small round rock. After falling from a decent height, it was a very unpleasant feeling. The unexpected flair of pain, coupled with his own weight and downward momentum, nearly made Sora fall flat on his face. He just managed to prevent that by planting both his hands onto the hard soil after descending to his right knee. It was a close thing as his head came to rest a mere inch above the ground before it stopped moving.

After taking a short moment to recover both his sense of balance and his breathing, Sora had forced himself to his feet and started running for the town docks. The blue eyed boy had pushed his legs to carry him down the cobbled streets as fast as they could. If his mother had noticed him by that point, he did not know or care.

Seemingly annoyed by his persistence, the wind seemed to strengthen its efforts to unbalance him and deter the spiky haired teen from his course. It whipped at his face, forcing Sora to shield his eyes with his left arm while he ran.

Because of the gale force, the spiky haired teen's necklace and waist chain had wiggled fiercely where they rested on his person while he ran. The former accessory had proven a much bigger bother than the latter, as it had threatened to cut off the air supply to his lungs by tightening around his neck. Sora had tried to handle that by taking hold of his crown shaped pendant with his right hand and clutching tightly away from his neck. The rest of the rather long chain just wiggled on its own, forcing the young islander to reluctantly stop in the middle of the street and remove the entire accessory from his neck. As the wind howled around him, Sora had struggled a little to keep his treasured possession from flying out of his hand as he put it in his right shorts pocket. After zipping up the pocket with his pendant safely encased within, the brown haired teen decided he was sick of his other accessory occasionally slapping his leg as it tried to fly away from him. After unhooking the chain from his belt, Sora went through a similar struggle as he forced into his left shorts pocket. Once said pocket was securely zipped up, the young islander once again started running down the beach.

Fortunately for the brown haired boy, it was largely a straight line to the docks from his house. No one else seemed to be out and about in this weather as well, so the spiky haired teen didn't have to worry about running into anyone on the wide street. The rest of the townsfolk were all likely indoors, too busy going about their own activities and keeping themselves out of the newly formed storm. The indoor lights from the small buildings along the street had actually been a boon to the young islander because they provided Sora with enough light to see in the dark while he ran.

If anybody had noticed what Sora was doing and called out to the spiky haired teen in an effort to stop his mad dash, the brown haired boy didn't hear a thing. The noise from the wind had increased to the point that it sounded like an enraged lion was roaring right next to his ears. It threatened to drown out even the sound of his own footsteps. Sora didn't bother sparing any thoughts to that, having put all his focus and energy on simply reaching the docks. When he got there, no one was present to stop him from untying his rowboat and taking off for the open waters.

That proved to be a terrible decision.

Unfortunately for the brown haired boy, getting to the docks soon revealed itself to be the easy portion of Sora's self-appointed mission. Rowing his small wooden vessel to the play islands had been a much harder task to complete. On a good day, this was a decent and relaxing activity. Tonight, it had been the harshest trial Sora had ever faced in his young life.

The stormy weather had not only affected the wind, which seemed to even further increase its efforts to toss Sora around like a blitz ball, but the very body of water the teen was attempting to row across as well. The ocean had been whipped up into such a frenzy that the salt water seemed to be doing all it could to impede the young islander over the course of his journey. The ocean's surface ceaselessly buckled beneath the boat like an angry horse trying to throw off of its rider. The wooden construct had ended up jumping through the air more than a few times because of this, with its spiky haired rower nearly thrown overboard every time it landed back in the water. Several times the water almost seemed to give way beneath the rowboat's weight when it came back down, nearly causing the vessel to become a makeshift submarine. If that wasn't bad enough, large waves of various sizes kept hurtling towards Sora from almost every direction without any sort of pattern behind their movements. They sprayed the young islander with large volumes of salt water every time they made contact with his ride and the largest of them threatened to either flip the vessel upside down or drag the young islander overboard. Sometimes, the salty liquid seemed to be actively trying to pry Sora's paddles off their nooks and out of his grip, forcing the teen fight to keep his grip on the wooden shafts. But the most frustrating part for Sora was – without a doubt - how these same waves would often force his boat to turn itself in a new direction against the spiky haired teen's will. When that happened, the prow of his vessel usually turned to face open waters if not the very town Sora had just left.

To say the red and black clothed boy was infuriated about this was too soft a word to describe the levels of his frustration. Thanks to the uncooperative ocean, Sora ultimately spent most of his time during the voyage making course corrections instead of rowing to the play islands. He was sorely tempted by the time he reached the halfway point of his journey to just ditch the boat and try his luck swimming towards the play islands. A confident swimmer in his own right, the only thing stopping the brown haired boy from doing so was the knowledge that his rowboat would likely get dragged out to open waters and lost forever. Assuming the storm didn't just rip it apart while Sora was away. But the longer it took for him to get to the play islands, the more tempting that line of thought became for the spiky haired teen.

In the end, Sora had no choice but to grit his teeth at how the world seemed to be actively trying to keep him from reaching the raft and endure the punishment he had rushed headlong into. Turning his frustration into fuel as best as he could, the spiky haired teen eventually managed to force his way through the uncooperative waters. It took far longer for him to reach the play islands than the young islander would have liked, almost four times the usual length of time needed to complete the trip at a rough guess on his part. And he was absolutely exhausted when he reached the metaphorical finishing line.

The brown haired boy was so tired he had to fight the urge to yawn while trying to catch his breath. His stomach felt like he hadn't eaten any food in days and it was as heavy as rock. His mouth and throat were drenched with salt water. The spiky haired teen's eyelids were so heavy it was a struggle to keep his eyes open and focused on the world around him. His caramel brown hair was so badly drenched it had given up on maintaining its usual spiky look and now seemed to be trying to half-heartedly mimic Riku's current hairstyle. The wooden paddles the brown haired boy always used to row felt three times heavier than normal and all the bones in his arms felt like they had mysteriously vanished. His hands and shoulders felt like they were on fire while his legs were so numb that the spiky haired teen would honestly believe they were missing if he couldn't see them with his own eyes right then and there. His lungs burned in his chest, begging Sora to take a moment to rest before continuing on his way.

However, Sora would not allow himself to stop. He could not.

' _I can't stop here. I need to get to the raft,'_ was the only thought going through Sora's mind when he finally pulled up in front of the dock. He was too sick and tired of rowing to try and place his boat along the side of the bridge-like construct and instead opted to park his ride directly at the head of the thing. _'I've wasted too much time as it is.'_

Despite all the trouble they had given the spiky haired teen, the angry ocean waves had failed to deter him from his chose course. Rather, they only made him more convinced than ever that the raft was in real danger of being ruined by the sudden storm. For all Sora knew, the wooden construct might already be badly damaged and in no shape to sail tomorrow morning. That was assuming Sora and his closest friends even decided to even depart like they had originally planned. He wouldn't be surprised if they were forced to wait a few more days to help around town after this sudden tempest.

Either way, Sora had a job to do right this moment. He could rest once he was sure that the raft was safe and sound.

Ignoring his aching limbs and protesting stomach, the young islander set about securing his boat to the end of the dock. With how violently the ocean was churning, he didn't have a choice but to take a moment to do so or the waters will drag the boat away from the play islands and leave him stranded there for the rest of the night. As much as the thought of rowing back to the town made him grimace, Sora had no desire to spend the night stranded on the play islands during a windstorm. The fit his mother would throw if he survived would be gigantic in its proportions.

Fortunately, now that he was in the shallows, the waves weren't as bad as they were before so Sora could tie his ride to the docks without worrying about it getting immediately dragged out to sea if he stopped rowing. The wind had also calmed down slightly now that the spiky haired teen had reached the larger play island. It was a little odd but Sora was more concerned about the raft and more interested in why the boat felt like it was still in open waters. A quick glance to his right answered the second question by showing Sora that the coast had moved further up the beach than usual. There was barely any sand left untouched and the water looked unusually high too. Looking at the head of the dock, Sora saw that it was much closer to the rim of the boat as well. If he were to jump into the waters here, the ocean surface would definitely stretch past his knees. It wasn't quite waist deep yet but it wasn't shallow enough that the bottom of his boat could touch the sands directly beneath it.

' _It's almost like the island is drowning,'_ Sora bitterly mused to himself as he let go of his rowing paddles. That was not a good sign. They had left the raft in the shallows on the other side of the islands as well. For all the red and black clothed boy knew, it could have been dragged out to sea and left him and his friends behind.

Leaving the paddles in their nooks to save time, Sora quickly fastened the short coil of rope in his boat to the docks before forcing himself to his feet. The churning waves were still rocking the boat beneath him as he did so. Because of how tired he felt, it was very difficult for the young islander to keep his balance. He had to throw his arms out to the sides to keep from sliding off his feet and wait for a momentary lull in the shaking before making a jump. Thanks to how numb his legs felt, it was a trying test of Sora's patience.

In the end, a brief moment of calm arrived after a few seconds. The young islander did not waste his chance and swiftly jumped onto the bridge-like construct before him. He managed to make the leap without issue despite the exhausted state of body. However, his numb legs were unable to support his weight once he had landed on the docks. For the second time tonight, Sora found himself falling forwards. And this time, it was a series of wooden planks rising up to meet his face instead of hard soil.

Grimacing, Sora threw both his forearms in front of his head in order to protect his face. The two limbs just barely positioned themselves in time and they slammed against the wood with a loud _whack_. Sora closed his blue eyes and hissed at the stinging sensation in his arms, which were now pinned between his head and the dock. His right knee also had a bad landing, causing the numbness it felt to replace by a harsh stinging pain. His left leg stretched out towards Sora's row boat, the only limb untouched by the sudden fall.

"Ow," Sora said to no one in particular. His eyes were closed, the lids scrunched up tight, as he spoke. After a few seconds of just lying there, the red and black clothed boy slowly shook his head from side to side to get rid of the small dizzy spell he was under.

' _This is ridiculous,'_ the spiky haired teen thought to himself, amazed by how worn out he was feeling. He honestly didn't think he had ever been this tired before in his life. Sora's breath came out in heavy puffs as he slowly reopened his eyes, still lying face down on the dock with his forearms acting as a makeshift pillow for his face. _'Then again, I have never tried rowing through a storm before.'_

While the brown haired boy refused to admit he had overestimated his capabilities in this instance, Sora could admit he had underestimated how tough it was going to be getting to these islands. Or perhaps, with his panic over the fate of the raft, the young islander hadn't even bothered to think about it. Still, he had gotten largely where he needed to be in the end. Now he just had to run the rest of the way. That was all that mattered.

' _Getting back to town is going to be a pain,'_ Sora thought to himself, forcing his head off his arms once the last remnants of his brief dizzy spell faded away. A small frown was on his pensive face as he thought, _'Mom's definitely going to notice I snuck out by now.'_

With the amount of time it took Sora to get here, there was no way she did not come up to his bedroom looking for him at some point. Knowing her, she was probably freaking out back at the house and wondering what he was doing in this storm. The red and black clothed boy honestly wondered how he was going to explain his actions to her without somehow exposing the raft. That fib he told Wakka and Selphie about him and Riku helping Kairi make a birthday gift for her aunt likely wasn't going to work this time.

Rapidly shaking his head from side to side a few times, the brown haired boy forced himself to ignore that particular train of thought for now. It wasn't important. He still needed to get to the other side of the island and check on the raft. Dealing with his mother would come after that.

' _I've been lying here for long enough. It's time to go,'_ Sora forcefully told himself.

He didn't say it but the brown haired boy was silently grateful that the clouds above still hadn't started to rain. Then again, it wouldn't have made much of a difference now since he was already drenched from the ocean waves. His clothes had surely been tested to their limits tonight but they felt dry against his skin.

The spiky haired teen didn't seem to notice that his brief unintended rest had done his body wonders. While not totally refreshed just yet, Sora definitely had more energy than when he jumped onto the docks and his stomach was no longer bothering him as much as before. His legs were still a little numb but the sensation had faded to manageable levels, along with the burning pain in Sora's shoulders. His arms felt like themselves again and even his hair had regained some of its usual spiky appearance.

With his mind made up, the first thing Sora did was unclench his fists. Spreading his thumbs and fingers as wide as they would go, the red and black clothed boy pressed his palms down on the wooden planks beneath him. With a small grunt, he pushed his torso off the dock and lifted himself into a rough seiza position on the structure, his full weight bearing down on both of his knees while his hands came to hang limply at his sides. The next step would have been to bring his left foot up underneath his torso and lift himself into a standing position while pressing down on it.

However, there was an unexpected delay. While pushing himself into his new upright position, Sora had reflexively tilted his head in tandem with the movement. With his eyes now turned towards the sky, the brown haired boy's immediate plan came to a screeching halt when he caught sight of something he never expected to see up there. It was a sight so surprising that his blue eyes went wide with shock as the brown haired boy tried to comprehend just what he was looking at right now.

"What… what's that?" Sora asked no one in particular, his throat suddenly feeling extremely parched as he gazed towards the heavens.

Somehow, without the spiky haired teen noticing beforehand, the angry clouds had vacated the portion of the night sky directly above the two play islands. Perhaps he had been too busy focusing on getting to the play islands or perhaps it was just too dark to see the difference from town. Either way, the clouds had formed a ragged circle formation around that spot.

Within that empty space was something Sora had never seen before. The object, if it could be called that, resembled a dark round sphere. And it was absolutely massive, at least twice the size of the smaller play island. A round and violently churning red-orange flame dominated the very center of the sphere while the majority of the strange object consisted of a swirling mass of black and purple vapors. The dark portions of the sphere seemed to be almost trying to smother out or obscure the fire from Sora's eyes. Bursts of wind and thin streams of black smoke were whipping around the object in a violent and random manner where it hovered in the sky, the large multi-colored mass seemingly immune to the wild winds currently raging around the Destiny Islands.

The whole thing looked like something out of Sora's wildest dreams as a younger child, back when he liked to imagine himself a knight fighting an evil wizard. Nothing like it had ever before appeared on the Destiny Islands. And as he looked up at the strange sphere, the young islander could not help but feel that there was something very wrong about its existence. Something inside of Sora – some instinct or gut feeling - was telling him that the large orb wasn't supposed to be here on these islands and that its presence was a bad sign. The young islander could not say why he felt that way. He just did.

' _Whatever that thing is… it's bad news,'_ the young islander thought to himself, finding the strength of will to pull his eyes away from the sky. Instead, he focused his gaze on the wooden planks of the small wooden dock. _'But it's not important right now. I need to get to the raft.'_

Regardless of the weather or whatever that thing is the sky was supposed to be, it didn't change why the young islander had come here right now. With his mind made up, Sora planted his left foot beneath his torso and forced himself up onto his feet with a grunt. As he stepped forward with his right foot, the spiky haired teen scanned his immediate surroundings with narrowed eyes. Finding another unexpected sight to the left of the dock, Sora came to a complete stop once his foot landed on the wood. The brown haired boy barely felt his eyes widen on his face as he took in the sight of two more rowboats. Both of these wooden vessels were currently fastened to the small bridge-like structure he was standing on.

With his single minded determination to get out of his own rowboat as fast as possible, Sora hadn't bothered to take a look in this direction and see if any other boats were currently docked here. Neither did he look to see if any were missing from the town docks when he raced towards his own earlier. And why would he? Given the weather and current time, the spiky haired teen had no reason to think that anyone else was even going to be on these two islands right now.

The two boats were positioned rather far apart from each other along what should be the ocean facing side of the dock. The first one was only two short steps away from Sora while its counterpart was almost pressed up against the island's short cliff face. The former, being further out to sea, was rocking slightly in place as the ocean waves tried to drag it out to open water, while the other boat was almost serenely sitting frozen in place in the shallows. The short cord connecting to the closest rowboat to the docks looked unyielding in its grip so it was unlikely to go drifting off anytime soon. Whoever that boat belonged to appeared to have been in as much a hurry as Sora was earlier because he or she hadn't bothered to take the paddles out of their nooks. Stealing another glance at the farthest rowboat confirmed for Sora that its paddles were resting inside the unmoving vessel.

' _Is that…?'_ Sora thought to himself, ultimately voicing the second half of what he was thinking out loud. "Riku's boat… And Kairi's?"

He had no way of knowing it was his friends for sure but the spiky haired teen couldn't think of anyone else who would have a reason to come back to the play islands at this time, especially with the way the weather was acting. Sora knew for a fact that he and Kairi had been the last ones to leave the islands earlier today so this small dock had been completely empty of boats when they had left. Still, if it was them, why had they come back here?

The answer was so obvious that Sora almost chuckled in a self-deprecatory manner.

"They must have seen the storm and gotten worried about the raft," the brown haired boy thought out loud to himself. _'Just like me.'_

Of course Riku and Kairi would have raced back here if they thought the raft was in any danger of being destroyed. The older boy especially would have done so without a moment's hesitation after all the work they had put into it and how strongly he felt about going out to see other worlds. The fact that he was the last one to reach the islands caused Sora to feel a small measure of embarrassment. At the same time, the knowledge that he wasn't alone out here seemed to wipe away any remaining exhaustion Sora felt.

With a resolved look back on his face, the red and black clothed boy turned his gaze away from the boats and looked down the length of the dock. To no one in particular, he said, "I'd better hurry and find them."

With that thought in mind, Sora turned himself to his right. A straight run towards the raft was impossible thanks to the large tree and the small stone mountain in the center of the island. The spiky haired teen had no choice but to take his usual route and circle around the breadth of the isle. The first step would naturally be to run across the large beach that had almost vanished beneath the ocean at this point in time. The water would slow him down somewhat but Sora was confident he could make it.

Just as he was about to jump down there, a flash of a small yellow glow appeared in the corner of Sora's left eye. Freezing in mid-crouch, a small frown worked its way onto the spiky haired teen's face. There definitely hadn't been a light there a moment ago. An instinct he couldn't quite ignore compelled Sora to slowly turn his head towards the new light source. The red and black clothed boy almost wished he hadn't done so when he saw what was standing on the other end of the small wooden ramp leading up to solid ground.

Unlike the two rowboats, this was definitely not a welcome one.

Standing with its two flat feet on the island's white gravel was a small creature with obsidian colored skin. It had a large round head that was twitching erratically in place. Barely half the size of Sora himself, the creature had a small teardrop shaped torso and held itself in a permanently stooped manner. Short arms that ended in small three-fingered and claw-like hands extended from its sides. And its large round head was adorned with only two things, a pair of long twisted antennae and a pair of small glowing yellow eyes.

His mouth opened wide with shock, Sora could only stare in disbelief as a creature identical to the first one appeared beside it. At first the thing resembled a flattened shadow that was fading into existence out of nowhere on solid ground. Once it had become pitch black, the shadow proceeded to then peel itself off the ground and assume its completed form.

' _Aren't those the monsters from my dream?'_ Sora thought to himself, a cold feeling running down his spine at the sight of them. He still didn't remember everything he had dreamed up that day on the beach but he definitely recalled the look of the creatures he encountered there. _'What are they doing here?'_

Before the red and black clothed boy had a chance to ponder that question, a sudden and overwhelming surge of pain erupted in his head. Crying out, Sora instinctively lowered his head and closed his blue eyes. He brought both his gloved hands up to his forehead in an attempt to alleviate his discomfort and barely felt his hands come into contact with their destination. His whole body vibrated under the force of the sudden headache and he nearly collapsed to his right knee because of it.

' _What is this? What's going on?'_ the young islander demanded to know, his teeth harshly grinding together as he tried to mentally force down the sudden pain. ' _Why now of all times?'_

As if in answer to his questions, a storm of images started to assault Sora's mind at a breakneck speed. He could barely keep up with the stream of pictures - of memories - that he could suddenly see and recall with his mind's eye. And every time a new one made itself known, replacing the image Sora was just looking at, a fresh wave of pain entered the young islander's brain.

 _The first thing Sora recalled was himself standing in what looked like a pitch black void that seemed to endlessly spread out in all directions. In a heartbeat, another image had flooded his mind before he could try and take in all the details. It would be a short time later that the red and black clothed boy realized he remembered everything his brain was trying to tell him with perfect clarity, regardless of how briefly the images lasted._

 _In the second memory, Sora was standing on top of a grey pedestal. The small pyramid-shaped object had been placed near the edge of what appeared to be a large flat and disc-shaped green painting. A sword with strangely curved blade was floating before the spiky haired teen with the tip pointed down towards the top of the pedestal while Sora was reaching towards its hilt with his right hand. The image that came after that showed Sora floating in mid-air, the sword nowhere in sight while the emerald painting had shattered into many small and scattered pieces around him. After that, the young islander saw himself falling deeper into the void as the green shards faded to nothing around him._

 _The following image showed Sora falling headfirst towards another round painting. This one was primarily colored blue and silver while depicting a blonde haired woman in a fancy silver dress. The next one showed him landing safely on his feet near the hem of her dress, the slight crouch in his frame indicating he had just arrived there unharmed. After that, Sora saw himself standing upright with the strange sword from before having mysteriously returned to his hands. He was holding it by the handle with his left hand, the blade positioned up before him with his right hand close to the sharp edge._

 _In the next memory, the red and black clothed boy saw himself standing on that same painting, sword in hand as several small monsters appeared before him. They looked exactly like the two creatures that had just appeared on Destiny Islands a short distance away from him. The images seemed to start picking up speed after the next one appeared. This memory showed Sora clearly fighting the monsters with his new sword. Five of them had him surrounded and one of them was leaping towards the teen's back while the young islander was busy slamming his sword onto the head of one of its brothers._

 _The following image showed Sora getting the strange sword knocked out of his hand. He next saw himself running towards the fallen weapon while some of the strange creatures chased after him. After that, the spiky haired teen remembered picking up the sword._

 _After that came three different images in rapid succession. Sora was confronting one of the monsters and in each image was hitting it with a different slashing attack with his sword. In the following image, the creature was shown to be in the process of bursting into black smoke after the third hit._

 _After that, Sora remembered having a faceoff with one of the creatures, the final member of the small group of monsters. Unlike the others, this monster had a small pool of black and purple liquid underneath it. He next recalled seeing the monster sinking into the strangely colored water. After that, the pool had expanded to cover much of the painting while a clearly nervous Sora tried to back away from it, the sword he had been using until then nowhere to be found. Next, Sora remembered being dragged into the dark water and how hard struggled to pull himself out of there after being submerged up to his waist._

 _The young islander then remembered waking up on another large round painting, this one depicting some sort of shadowed creature. He recalled talking to a slightly taller woman dressed in a white coat, the hood pulled over her head in order to hide to her face from view. After that, the red and black clothed boy had spoken to a taller man in a coat exactly like the woman's. This guy was standing with his back turned towards Sora and looking at the spiky haired teen over his left shoulder. The following image showed Sora walking towards what appeared to be a guy around his own age sitting on the edge of the portrait the young islander was on top of. This person was also wearing a white coat with the hood pulled up to hide his face._

 _After that, the blue eyed teen remembered standing in the middle of another round painting, once again holding that odd curved sword in his hand. This painting was primarily red in color with a sleeping blonde woman wearing a purple dress predominant in it. The brown haired boy recalled crouching down slightly in his usual stance, holding the sword to his right with both hands. More of those strange yellow eyed monsters had appeared, numbering twenty in total and they had him surrounded in a loose circle. Sora next saw himself swatting one of the monsters out of the air with his borrowed weapon. Another image displayed a monster in the process of turning into black smoke after Sora slammed his curved weapon down on its head with a powerful two-handed downward swing._

 _The image following that showed Sora still on the red painting, staring at a slightly winding staircase consisting of small rectangular platforms floating in mid-air. Next, the young islander was racing up the staircase and he now recalled that they were a jumbled mass of multiple colors of varying sizes._ _After climbing the stairs, Sora had reached another round portrait while a large white light loomed above him. This image was almost entirely yellow and featured both a beautiful woman and some sort of furred creature._

 _Sora recalled he wasn't alone on that painting for very long. Now standing near the round edge of the image, the red and black clothed boy was looking up at a colossal obsidian titan that roughly resembled a muscular man with long arms, a heart shaped hole in its torso, and head playing host to a seething mass of tentacles that covered everything but the monster's glowing yellow eyes. In the next image the monster tried to swat at Sora with its right arm but the young islander leaped over it. The image after that showed Sora down on one knee, the strange sword nowhere in sight while two of the small stooped monsters were slashing him with their claws._

 _Finally, Sora recalled lying on his belly in the middle of a pool of that strange black liquid. He was clearly panicking and trying to get out of there but small dark tendrils were latched onto his form, restraining him and seemingly dragging him deeper into the darkly colored water. As this was happening, some of the small creatures were standing around Sora while their goliath companion loomed above them all, looking down on Sora with its glowing yellow eyes._

The very moment he finished recalling the final portion of his strange dream, Sora's headache faded away. The pain was in the blink of an eye and left no trace of its previous existence once it had disappeared. It might as well have never existed in the first place.

At the same time, the spiky haired teen felt as if a heavy weight he did not know he had been carrying on his shoulders all this time had also vanished. Breathing heavily, the young islander wasn't too surprised to find a small sheen of sweat on his hands after he pulled them away from his face and opened his eyes.

' _I remember now. I remember everything,'_ Sora thought to himself, thinking about his odd dream as he slowly regained control of his breathing.

It had all come back to him just now, in what might as well have been the blink of an eye. How he had mysteriously found himself in a strange void-like space and ended up being forced to choose between one of three weapons. Meeting and fighting these strange monsters. The soundless voice that kept pushing him around and the hooded people who asked him odd questions. And, of course, the giant pitch black goliath he had been forced to fight at the end of it all. Remembering what he had said to Kairi after waking up on the beach that same day, Sora clenched his hands into fists and thought, _'It wasn't a dream.'_

How could it have been one if the very same creatures he saw in that strange place were now here on the Destiny Islands?

' _How did they even get here? And why now of all times?'_ Sora thought to himself as he pulled himself upright. He knew for a fact that there had never been anything like them on the islands before. And he was pretty sure he never imagined monsters that looked like them in his spare time when he was younger. So what were they?

With a small frown on his face, the brown haired boy slowly turned his body a little to the left in order to regard the obsidian hued creatures with narrowed eyes. There were three of them standing on the island now, all located on the other side of the ramp that would lead Sora off the wooden dock and onto solid ground. They stood in a loose triangle formation that wasn't pointed in the young islander's direction. The yellow eyed monster furthest from the spiky haired teen was the last to arrive and it seemed to be looking around in a confused manner. In contract, its brothers were looking straight at Sora with their glowing yellow eyes, heads twitching slightly in an erratic fashion while they stood rooted to where they had first appeared.

One of them decided it had enough of just standing in one spot. The moment Sora made eye contact with it, the left most monster started running down the ramp. The red and black clothed boy knew instantly that it was charging straight towards him. His fists tightened at his sides and his frown turned into an outright scowl as he observed the approaching threat.

Bending forward slightly, Sora lost control of his composure and held his left fist before his body. He angrily called out to the approaching monster and said, "Bring it on."

With his piece said, the young islander immediately started running towards the charging creature. His longer legs allowed Sora to cross the distance separating them at a great speed and he was halfway across the docks before the creature was in range for an attack. Throwing his right hand back in preparation for a punch, Sora forced his body to stop running forward once the approaching beast was within his reach. With a loud yell, he thrust his fist forward and landed a solid blow upon the creature's forehead.

That… immediately proved to be a mistake on the young islander's part.

A loud cry of pain burst forth from Sora's mouth the very second he hit the beast. He reflexively shut his eyes while his hand throbbed from the impact. The spiky haired teen felt like he had just hit an unyielding rock instead of a living being. Staggering back two short steps, the brown haired boy grasped his right arm by the wrist with his other hand as a strange burning sensation spread across the area that made contact with the monster. It didn't quite feel like his hand was on fire but it definitely felt like it had come into contact with something very warm.

Opening his eyes, Sora looked at his hand with a narrowed glare and was amazed to discover not a mark on the appendage despite the pain he felt. He silently wondered, _'What is this? What's going on here?'_

Unfortunately for the spiky haired teen, he had let his guard down and failed to notice that the monster he just tried to punch was still advancing. Not even noticing the blow Sora had just dealt it, the creature thrust its right claw forward and stabbed Sora's left leg. The spiky haired teen cried out as his leg felt as if it had just come into contact with three sharp and extremely warm blades. Reflexively looking down as he took a step back with his left foot, Sora once again found not a mark on his person, despite the burning pain in his leg.

Gritting his teeth, Sora let go of his right hand and glared down at the small monster. The pain in that hand had already faded to a much more manageable level. Seemingly oblivious to his anger, the creature just tilted its head to the side in an erratic fashion as it stood before the red and black clothed boy.

"That… hurt," Sora told the beast, almost snarling the words through his grit teeth.

Immediately after he said that, Sora pulled his left fist back in preparation for another punch. With a loud yell, he struck the beast in the center of its forehead. Like his previous attempt, the creature didn't even flinch at the blow. It may as well have never even felt the punch land in the first place. Sora on the other hand did and it was not a pleasant sensation. He cried out in pain as the exact same burning sensation he felt in his right hand a short while ago infected his left hand.

Leaping a short distance away from the small monster, Sora held his arm out to the side and hastily swung it up and down in an attempt to put out an imaginary fire. Looking at his hand showed the spiky haired teen that there wasn't a single mark present on his left hand despite the agony it was covered in. It was like whatever pain Sora felt existed only underneath the surface of his skin.

' _Just what is this?'_ he asked himself again as the pain started to fade away. A sudden thought entered his head and Sora frowned to himself in anger. Asking no one in particular, he silently wondered, _'Are you telling me I can't even touch these things without hurting myself? How is that fair?'_

Either way, that was not a good sign for the spiky haired teen. Lifting his head, Sora's eyes widened when he saw that the closest monster was once again advancing on him. Forgetting his train of thought, he tried to kick it in the chin with his left foot. The blow landed squarely and even managed to force the creature's head to rise slightly this time. Beyond that, the beast didn't seem in any way affected by the sudden attack. It continued its advance towards Sora unimpeded while the spiky haired teen stumbled back, having lost his balance while a familiar burning sensation enveloped almost his entire left foot.

' _Not good,'_ Sora thought a moment later, unable to keep himself from falling on his rear.

Attempting to walk backwards with just his right foot was simply too difficult and awkward for the spiky haired teen. His foot just slid out beneath Sora and his body fell backwards. After landing on his butt, the spiky haired teen quickly slammed his no longer burning hands on to the planks behind him. That action was the only thing that kept the teen from falling all the way on to his back and smacking the back of his head against the hard wood.

Opening his closed eyes a moment later, Sora saw the creature was still advancing towards him. With a grimace on his face the young islander pushed himself up with his hands and feet, lifting his torso towards the sky. He stretched his four limbs as far as he could while doing so. Lifting his feet off the dock a moment later, the young islander pulled himself into a hand stand just in time to avoid receiving a slash on his right leg from the monster's left claw. His own momentum dragging his feet past his waist, the red and black clothed boy ended up in a small crouch a short distance away from his assailant. He hissed slightly when his left foot made contact with the hard wood, the appendage still affected by the odd burning sensation at the time.

Lifting his gaze, Sora saw the small obsidian hued monster had decided to flatten itself against the dock. A part of him couldn't help but wonder how they were able to even do that in first place. He didn't get a chance to think more deeply about this. With the monster now flat against the wooden planks, the young islander could clearly see that the monster's two companions were now advancing towards him. The closest one of the approaching pair was running towards him on its flat feet while the last member of the trio had flattened itself on the wooden panels and just finished crawling down the wooden ramp. A quick glance down showed the spiky haired teen that the one he had been fighting with until now was pulling away from him.

Sora couldn't keep his eyes on that one for long because the running monster decided to leap towards him, intending to slash either the teen's head with its left claw. With a surprised cry, Sora forced himself to stand upright and leaped a short distance to his right to avoid the sudden attack. He twisted his body in mid-air to keep an eye on the flying creature and landed with his back towards the beach and smaller play island. His heels came dangerously close to the edge of the dock when they touched down on the wooden planks.

"That was close," Sora commented to himself, a few panicked breaths leaving his mouth as he did so. Focusing on the situation, he next said, "Where are they?"

Quickly turning his head from left to right revealed to the red and black clothed boy where each of his assailants was currently located. The one that had leaped past him just now had landed a short distance away and was turning to face him. The monster that attacked his legs earlier was peeling itself off the wooden almost directly in front of Sora. And the final member of the trio had already peeled itself off the planks and was now running towards him. Together, the strange trio formed a loose crescent moon shaped formation in front of the young islander.

While the brown haired boy tried to keep his eyes on all three of them at once, Sora's mind was desperately racing for a solution to his predicament. With grit teeth, he thought, _'Why does it hurt to touch these things? How am I supposed to fight them then? I don't have a weapon!'_

The spiky haired teen was certain that if the strange curved sword he had been using in that weird place was going to appear it would have done so by now. Without it, Sora genuinely had nothing with which to defend himself at the moment. The red and black clothed boy didn't even have a toy sword right now, having left the only one he owned at his house while trying to sneak out earlier. Sora had been so focused on getting to the raft as quickly as possible that he never thought he would need the thing. How as it going to help him reach and secure the raft anyway?

Looking at his current situation, Sora strongly regretted not grabbing it when he had the chance. It would probably be very helpful right now. The spiky haired teen knew there were still a couple of spares by the raft, having been left there by he and his friends earlier today, but the large wooden construct was still on the other side of the island. The red and black clothed boy couldn't see anything that could act as a somewhat useful replacements nearby. There weren't any large rocks in arm's reach and it would take too long to pry one of the wooden planks off the dock in order to use as a makeshift club.

Seeing that the creature to his right was still advancing towards him, Sora could only come up with a single solution to his current predicament.

' _I've got to get out of here.'_

The spiky haired teen didn't relish the idea of running away from these things one bit but the situation just wasn't in his favor. He didn't have anything he could use as a weapon on him right now. And apparently he would only end up injuring himself if he tried to fight these things with his bare hands and feet. There was just no point in sticking around here. Riku and Kairi were also somewhere on the play islands right now. Sora needed to find his friends before these things did. Their safety was far more important to the red and black clothed boy than his wounded pride. Running away was, unfortunately, the only way out of this predicament that the spiky haired teen could see right now.

Gritting his teeth, Sora spun on his left foot to gain a bit more distance from the advancing obsidian hued monster. He ignored how it brought him a little closer to the one that leaped past him earlier. Crouching down as soon as his right foot once again hit the dock, the young islander was about to leap into the shallows when he caught sight of several faint yellow glows beneath the waves.

' _Don't tell me…'_ he began to think to himself, freezing in place.

His fears were proven true a moment later. Two more of these strange monsters, having apparently been in that weird flattened state of theirs beneath the waves, pulled themselves to their full height. The two of them didn't seem to care that their legs were still submerged in the salt water or notice the droplets falling off their obsidian frames. They just looked up at the spiky haired teen with those faintly glowing yellow eyes of theirs.

Distracted as he was by the new arrivals, Sora had forgotten about the monster coming towards him at that moment. He paid for his inattention by receiving a painful slash to the right side of his stomach. Crying out, the red and black clothed boy instinctively closed his eyes and placed both his hands over the now burning location. A fresh surge of irritation erupted within his body once his mind figured out what just happened.

Rising to his full height, Sora loudly bellowed, "Will you quit with that?"

Blinded by his temper, Sora opened his eyes and glared down at the creature. Forgetting what would happen if he did so, the brown haired boy twisted in place and lashed out at the beast with his right foot. He struck his assailant in the side of its head but failed to make the thing so much as twitch where it stood. It just stood in place, staring up at him with its glowing yellow eyes. As it did so, a painful feeling the young islander was growing quite familiar with consumed the majority of his right foot.

"Not again," Sora complained after a wordless cry of pain burst from his lips. Peeling his hands away from his side, he held his burning hot foot in mid-air while hopping slightly on his left one.

Having closed his eyes after kicking his previous assailant, Sora did not see one of the monsters on the beach leap towards him. The creature slammed into the brown haired teen's right shoulder with a flying head butt. Off balanced as he was, the young islander was instantly knocked off his left foot and sent careening towards the wooden planks beneath him. Even as a surprised gasp burst from his lips, Sora instinctively brought up his left arm to shield his face as he fell towards the dock. The appendage just barely made it in time. The young islander landed hard on the left side of his body, the air knocked out of his lungs.

Taking advantage of his somewhat dazed state, the monster Sora had kicked advanced upon the spiky haired teen and drove its right claw into Sora's stomach. Even as the spiky haired teen screamed in pain from the sudden attack, one of the creature's unseen compatriots chose to drive its claw into the spot between his shoulder blades. With both his stomach and upper back now feeling like they were on fire, Sora couldn't help but squirm like an angry worm on the deck while his four limbs wildly spasmed around him.

' _This isn't good,'_ the brown haired boy instantly realized, forcing himself to think through the pain. As his wild motions died down, he thought, _'I'm a sitting duck like this. I need to get up right now.'_

With that thought in mind, Sora forced himself to roll onto his back. He couldn't help but hiss in pain when the area between his shoulder blades, which still felt like it was on fire, connected with the hard wood. Fighting through the pain, the spiky haired teen was about to execute the Counter Roll when an unexpected event occurred. One of the obsidian hued creatures to Sora's right jumped onto his stomach just as he started to bring his legs up. The young islander's belly instantly felt like it had been set on fire. At the same time, the small beast was far heavier than the spiky haired teen expected it to be and he instantly found himself pinned to the dock by its arrival. Before Sora could blink, the creature continued its attack and drove its left claw into his stomach as well. A loud scream erupted from the young islander's throat as he spasmed beneath the small beast. He unintentionally struck another monster with his right and left hand respectively while he did so, further increasing the pain he felt.

Panting heavily a moment later, Sora tried his hardest to ignore the pain. With a great deal of effort, the brown haired boy lifted his head off the docks and glared at the thing crouching on his belly. Making eye contact with the monster, the red and black clothed boy said, "No fair."

The creature's only response was to stab Sora again. This time it hit him just below the collar bone with its right claw. The spiky haired teen grit his teeth and just barely managed to suppress the urge to cry out as he angrily looked at the thing.

' _I've got to get this thing off of me,'_ he realized and there was only one way Sora could do achieve that.

Knowing this was going to hurt, the young islander grimaced before reaching up and taking ahold of the creature with both hands. He even managed to pin its small arms to the sides of its teardrop-shaped torso as he did so. Just as the spiky haired teen had expected it to, the strange burning sensation once again spread to his hands. Combining that with the pain Sora was currently feeling in his stomach, the painful feeling threatened to bring a tear to his eye.

' _This is nothing. I can do this. I can do this,'_ Sora egged himself on, trying to block out the pain and see this maneuver through to the end. Taking a deep breath, he tried to lift the thing off his belly and toss it to the side.

The monster squirmed in his grip as he slowly but surely pushed it off his stomach. One of its compatriots stabbed Sora's right elbow with his claw as he did so and the spiky haired teen nearly lost his grip on the beast as a pained cry burst from his lips. Pushing the pain he was feeling aside as best as he could, Sora threw both arms to his right and pushed the creature back onto the dock. He wasn't confident he would be able to carry it past his head and dump it into the ocean. Either way, just getting the thing off his burning belly was a win in Sora's books right now.

The pride he felt at the new achievement was momentary though. Feeling something sharp and incredibly warm come into contact with the left side of his stomach helped the brown haired boy remember he was still in a bad spot.

Grimacing, the spiky haired teen quickly decided to go back to his original plan of using the Counter Roll. He couldn't do a sideways roll to gain distance from his attackers because there was at least one monster in both directions. With a grunt, Sora managed to lift his legs off the dock and placed the tips of his toes on either side of his face. It was an uncomfortable position for his still burning stomach but Sora forced himself to power through it and he placed both hands beside his feet. Feeling one of the monsters strike his right elbow with one of its claws almost broke his concentration but Sora forced himself to leap to his feet. He landed in an awkward crouch before the edge of the dock, not having the strength to cover his usual distance when performing that maneuver.

Still the spiky haired teen had managed to pull himself to his feet. Lifting his head, Sora frowned when he saw the beach might not be a viable option for him anymore. He could see three of these strange monsters were standing in the shallow waters and looking up at him. There was also two pairs of small faintly glowing yellow lights visible beneath the ocean's surface as well. Not wanting to run straight into the middle of this group, Sora instead looked for another solution.

He saw that there were three of these strange creatures to his right at this moment, with one of them flattening itself against the wooden boards. A quick glance to his left showed only one more of the monsters was standing between him and the ramp leading to solid ground. This one had pulled away from him using that strange flattening trick of theirs and had yet to return to its full height.

' _The longer way it is,'_ Sora thought, breaking into a run down the length of the dock. He needed to avoid coming into contact with these things as much as possible right now.

Hearing a thumping sound behind him after a few steps, the red and black clothed boy looked over his shoulders and saw that one of the monsters had tried to leap at his exposed back. It had come up short and the spiky haired teen was already pulling away from it. Looking forward, Sora saw the monster from earlier was pulling itself to its full height a very short distance away.

Seeing it preparing to reach forward and stab him with its left claw, the spiky haired teen simply leaped over the small beast while saying, "Not this time."

Landing on his bare feet directly behind the monster, Sora didn't both trying to kick it in the back and simply continued on his way now that his path was unopposed. Sadly for the spiky haired teen, his good luck did not hold out for long. As soon as he reached the base of the wooden ramp, another one of the strange monsters peeled itself off the ground before him.

"Oh, come on," Sora loudly protested, taking a step back as another one appeared in their usual manner beside the first newcomer. "How many of you guys are there?"

Rather than provide the red and black clothed boy with a verbal answer to his question, the second member of the two new arrivals simply leaped towards Sora's head. Gritting his teeth, the spiky haired teen merely crouched down as best as he could and placed his right hand on the wooden planks. The creature flew harmlessly over Sora's head and the small breeze its passage kicked up caused several spikes of brown hair to sway in place. Sora heard rather than saw it land a short distance behind him and lifted his head to look up the wooden ramp. Seeing the other monster advancing towards him, the spiky haired teen awkwardly threw himself a small distance to his right in order to avoid it.

As his latest attacker came to a stop in front of him, the brown haired boy was about to try and jump past it when his eyes landed on the rowboat directly behind the small monster. Or rather, his eyes locked on to the two rowing paddles just casually lying inside the small vessel. An idea sprouted in the spiky haired teen's eyes at the sight of them.

' _It's worth a shot,'_ Sora decided less than a moment later, a determined look appearing on his face.

Quickly leaping over the small silent monster in front of him, the young islander landed near the other edge of the dock and quickly jumped into the small boat. The vessel briefly swayed beneath him as a result of his sudden weight. By gripping the rim of the ship with his left hand while remaining in a crouched position, Sora was able to easily wait it out. Once the wooden boat was done rocking, the red and black clothed boy quickly leaned forward and grasped one of the wooden paddles by its shaft with both hands.

' _All right, let's try this again,'_ he thought with a new rush of confidence, pulling himself to his feet.

Turning around, Sora saw one of the monsters leaping off the docks and heading towards him. With a loud cry, he swung his new makeshift weapon with both hands and struck the monster in the right side of its torso with the flat head of the paddle. Continuing his wide swing, Sora let go of the paddle with his left hand and threw the obsidian hued creature into the ocean. It crashed into the waves, generating a large splash, before vanishing underneath the surface of the water.

"Hah, now we're talking," the brown haired boy proudly declared. Looking back up at the dock, he saw another one of the monsters standing at the edge of the wooden planks. Its head twitched erratically in place while it peered down at him. Grinning ferociously, Sora said, "Here's some for you too."

Grasping his paddle by the shaft with both hands, he thrust the flat head of the object upward and slammed it against the monster's chin. Seeing the creature flinch back slightly at the blow, Sora felt his grin further widen as a surge of happiness filled his heart. Keeping the momentum, he pulled the paddle to his right and struck the monster on the right side of its head with his next swing. Still holding the paddle with both hands, the red and black clothed boy then hit it on the left side of its head with his next attack. However, the beast failed to burst into black smoke like Sora believed it was supposed to after the third hit.

Seeing the creature still standing there after the brief barrage of attacks brought a small frown to the young islander's face. "What gives? I thought you guys vanish after three hits."

The monster's only response was to leap towards the teen just as one of its brothers pulled up beside it. The second creature was still in the process of peeling itself off the wood planks when the first one chose to jump. Narrowing his eyes, Sora quickly swatted the approaching beast out of the air and knocked it into the ocean in the same manner he used against the first monster he hit with the paddle.

Quickly turning his head upwards once that creature was dealt with, Sora saw yet another one of the obsidian hued monsters in the process of leaping towards him. Quickly switching his makeshift paddle to his left hand, the red and black clothed boy awkwardly swatted it out of the sky with a backhanded swing. The young islander just barely managed to keep it from landing in the rowboat and slammed it against the side of the island. He promptly fell into the water between the solid ground and the small vessel, its descent starting before Sora had even started to pull back his makeshift weapon.

"That was close," Sora thought out loud, panting slightly as he once again took hold of the wooden object with both hands. Looking up to towards the docks, the brown haired boy was dismayed to find three more of the creatures now looking down at him while standing on the edge of the thing. An ugly grimace forming on his young face, Sora spared them a few words. He angrily said, "Whatever is going on with you guys, I need to go. I've wasted enough time here. I need to find Riku and Kairi."

That said Sora decided to give them a parting shot before trying to make his escape. He swung the paddle towards the middle monster with a back-handed swing of his right hand. The red and black clothed boy did not expect the head of his makeshift weapon to snap off the shaft as soon as it made contact with the head of his latest target, the sudden separation kicking up a few splinters. Even as his right arm still moved to the side, the rest of Sora's body completely froze in place at the sight.

' _Uh… what?'_ the young islander blankly thought, blinking once while he watched the paddle's head bounce off the edge of the dock, bounce off the tip of the rowboat, and then fall into the ocean with a small splash. _'Did that just happen?'_

A quick glance at the broken end of the brown haired boy's makeshift weapon confirmed for him that it did. A sinking feeling appeared in the spiky haired teen's stomach, causing it to feel like a heavy stone trying to weigh him down. That feeling only grew when one of the monsters he had struck earlier leaped out of the ocean and landed in the boat, only a single step away from him. Even as he turned to regard the immediate threat, Sora saw a pair of faintly glowing eyes peering at him from the water on the edge of his eyesight.

Gritting his teeth, Sora pulled his right arm up and lifted his hand past his head. With a loud cry erupting from his mouth, the brown haired boy brought his long stick down on the creature's round head. The wooden haft just snapped in two when it made contact with monster. Though the creature flinched slightly as a result of the strike Sora felt no joy in it.

' _This is seriously not fair,'_ the red and black clothed boy thought to himself, feeling a mixture of frustration and despair in his chest as he did so.

After throwing the broken handle into the water, Sora turned his back to the larger play island and crouched down. Reaching behind him with his right hand, Sora grabbed the shaft of the second rowing paddle. He was about to jump into the shallow water when the small monster beside the spiky haired teen stabbed him in the left side of his belly with its right claw-like hand. Crying out, the red and black clothed boy staggered forward slightly and nearly released his hold on the newly acquired weapon. Gritting his teeth, Sora opened his eyes and leaped into the water, dragging the wooden rowing paddle behind him. The shaft of the paddle struck a glancing blow on the side of the small monster's round head as it passed the beast but the strange being didn't even flinch at the unintended strike.

Landing feet first into the water, Sora found himself being submerged almost all the way up to his hips. The salt water was almost freezing cold to the touch and the brown haired boy had to fight the urge to shiver at the contact. A quick look to his left showed the spiky haired teen that the ocean was still violently churning. When he combined that with the water's temperature, Sora completely abandoned the idea of simply swimming around the island to get to the raft. Instead, the young islander simply trudged along the length of the dock as fast as he could. At one point, he stepped on something that was much harder than the soaked sands and the contact caused a familiar burning sensation to encompass the base of the spiky haired teen's right foot. Grimacing at the pain, Sora forced himself to march onwards and only made a few more steps before he saw another one of the strange creatures pulling itself upright directly in his path. Only the very top of its round head and its long antennae managed to breach the water but Sora could see its faintly glowing eyes looking right at him.

After what happened to his last paddle, the spiky haired teen was very reluctant to hit this one with the paddle he now had. At the same time, he wouldn't be able to run very fast in the water or fight as well as he usually did with almost half his body sub-merged in the ocean. Looking up as he took hold of the rowing paddle with both hands, Sora saw that the section of the docks to his immediate left was unoccupied by the monsters. If there were any there right now, they had flattened themselves against the wood with that strange trick of theirs and were currently out of his line of sight.

Deciding to take the chance, Sora grasped the paddle with both hands and planted the flat head of object into the drenched sands below. Jumping up with his legs as best as he could, Sora used his arms to house himself onto the docks. He almost didn't make it and landed on a low crouch against the wood, nearly lying on the dock with his left foot, right knee, and left hand pressed against. Huffing slightly from his latest excursion, Sora forced himself into a rough kneeling position and brought the paddle out of the water with a small grunt.

The grimace on the spiky haired teen's face deepened when he saw two of the small monsters were directly in front of him. The one he saw in the water earlier leaped on to the dock as well. The young islander didn't even consider looking behind him to see how many more of these things were in that direction right now. As much as it galled him, the spiky haired teen was certain he couldn't handle even one of these things right now. Never mind all of them.

' _I don't have a choice here. I got to risk the beach,'_ Sora thought to himself, his grip tightening on the rowing paddle. He still remembered seeing a fair amount of these monsters waiting for him in the shallow waters to his left but running through them was still the quickest way to the raft. It was definitely a better choice than staying here and letting these things keep picking him apart with their claws.

His mind made up, the red and black clothed boy pulled himself to his full height. Turning towards the sands, Sora's eyes landed on the smaller play island just as he was about to start running. The spiky haired teen let out a surprised gasp as he took in the sight of that familiar landscape. Even in the darkness, Sora could there was someone standing on top of it. A human being.

A human being with a very familiar mop of silver hair.

"Riku," Sora breathed out, recognizing his friend even with his back turned towards the wooden dock. Despite his circumstance, an excited and relieved grin broke out on the young islander's face. Wildly waving his left hand, Sora called out to the other boy. "Hey, Riku! Are you all right?! I can use some help over here!"

Despite yelling as hard as he could, the red and black clothed boy's words didn't seem to reach his friend. The silver haired teen just kept standing in place, his back towards Sora. From his posture, he seemed to be staring in the direction of town. Despite wanting to believe his best friend simply couldn't hear him, a foreboding feeling entered Sora's gut.

' _Why is he just standing there looking towards town?'_ Sora asked himself, feeling concerned for his best friend. Though it had only been a short time since he laid eyes on his best friend, the red and black clothed boy didn't seem Riku move or shift his posture by even the slightest margin. That just didn't seem right. _'Doesn't he see what's going on here? What happened to the raft? And where's Kairi?'_

A quick scan of the smaller island's surface did not expose the redhead's location to Sora. There weren't enough trees on that landscape for him to be unable to catch even a small glimpse of her from the dock. Did the two of them get separated before Sora arrived? It was highly unlike Riku to live the younger girl alone while dangerous monsters were prowling about. He had always been somewhat overprotective of her since they became friends. Did the silver haired boy even know these things were on the island?

Completely distracted by his musings, Sora did not notice two of the obsidian hued creatures were running towards him from opposite directions. They struck him with their claw-like hands at almost the exact same time. The one coming at Sora from his right stabbed him in the foot while the one on his left drove its right claw into Sora's left leg. Crying out from surprise and pain, Sora collapsed to his left knee and slammed his left hand onto the wooden panels. He even dropped his wooden paddle, the makeshift weapon clattering uselessly on the dock directly beside him.

Growling in anger, Sora looked towards his left and made eye contact with one of the creatures. Barely paying attention to the others he could see rushing towards him on flat feet, the spiky haired teen loudly said, "Get away from me already."

He slammed both hands against the creature's face in his rage and attempted to shove it away. He managed to push the beast's head back slightly as a familiar burning sensation threatened to consume his hands but the small monster's feet remained firmly rooted in place. Its nearest comrade in arms took the opportunity to stab Sora on the right side of his belly while he was distracted. Closing his eyes as a pained cry left his lips, the brown haired boy slammed his hands onto the wooden docks.

' _Enough of this. I need to get to Riku,'_ Sora angrily thought to himself. His desire to reach his friends and make sure they were safe had only increased tenfold after finally laying eyes on one of them. He couldn't stay here and let these things keep him from getting to Riku and then finding Kairi.

Forcing himself to his feet, the spiky haired teen immediately started running across the width of the dock without bothering to pick up the wooden paddle. The monster to his left tried to slash at his legs with its left claw while the spiky haired teen moved past it but the attack missed. After slamming his left foot directly in front of the edge of the dock, Sora threw himself off the bridge-like construct and fell towards the salt water below. Swinging his arms wildly as he flew over one of the strange creatures, the red and black clothed boy kicked up a small splash when he landed behind it.

Not wasting a moment, the young islander immediately pulled himself out of his crouch and started running through the thin cold water. He had an easier time moving here as the water level didn't reach even halfway up to his knees. It was still freezing cold to the touch however. Paying the water, little mind, Sora ran across the length of the beast as fast as he could. Hearing several splashes behind him, he grit his teeth and tried to run even faster.

The few monsters in the soaked beach tried to stop him. One tried to leap at him from his right but he was too fast, causing the creature to fly through empty air behind him. Another faded into existence underneath the water. Sora stepped on it before it could start rising to its full height but beyond a momentary stumble due to the burning sensation at the base of his foot, the spiky haired teen was able to continue on his way without issue. Another one directly in his path leaped towards Sora as he headed towards the wooden cottage. The red and black clothed boy just pulled himself to his right, the monster's left claw narrowly missed his right arm as the beast flew by him.

Seeing a monster starting to peel itself off the dry sands directly in front of the cottage door, Sora decided not to bother rushing in there to run up the steps inside. Even if he could get past that creature, getting stuck with some – if not all - of these guys in an enclosed space was probably a bad idea. The best way to get to Riku right now would be for Sora to climb onto the cottage's roof and run across it. He could try swimming to the ladder on the far side of the small play island but the spiky haired teen did not relish the idea of trying to swim through the freezing cold and violently churning waters.

His course set, Sora immediately turned towards the wide wooden board that connected the beach with solid ground by acting as a ramp. Just as the spiky haired teen reached the base of it, another one of these strange creature's faded into view. He unintentionally stepped on it with his left foot and momentarily hissed at the burning sensation before continuing on his way, ignoring the creature as it pulled itself to his full height behind him.

As his feet came to land on solid ground, Sora pulled himself to a stop a single step away from the edge of the island's small lake. He turned to the right, intending to run across the short distance he still needed to traverse before he was able to leap onto the roof of the wooden cottage. That was the moment when his luck turned.

Unknown to the spiky haired teen, one of the obsidian hued creatures chasing him had decided to launch itself at him with a flying tackle while his back was turned. The red and black clothed boy caught its approach out of the corner of his right eye when he finished turning around but by then it was too late for him to do a thing. The creature's round head slammed into Sora's right shoulder with enough force to send him stumbling to his left. After taking two quick steps towards the lake – and nearly stepping on his left foot with his right as he did so – Sora ended up placing his left foot on empty air.

"What?" he managed to cry out as he lost his balance completely. His body tilted against his control and he ended up falling into the small lake, his entire body vanishing beneath the surface while kicking up a large splash.

The fresh water surrounding his submerged form felt even colder than the salt water somehow. The left side of his face, along with his left arm, was the first portion of Sora's body to come into contact with the ground underneath the shallow layer of water. Fortunately for the spiky haired teen, it was mostly soft sand down there instead of solid ground, which severely limited the risk of serious injury. Were it not for the freezing cold water all around him, it might have felt like falling into a nice soft bed.

Struggling to find air with his entire body under the lake, Sora pushed himself into a sitting position with his left arm. He immediately started hacking and coughing once his head broke the surface of the water. Having his had his eyes closed the entire time, the spiky haired teen did not see another one of the small beings leaping towards him. The creature slammed onto his head feet first and leaped past him after its weight started driving Sora's head back towards the water. The surprised young islander thrashed violently after becoming submerged, holding on to his now burning head with both hands.

' _Man, these things just don't give up,'_ Sora thought to himself as he kicked the water with his legs and twisted his head from side to side.

With a great deal of effort, the red and black clothed boy forced himself to ignore the pain he was feeling and he forced himself into an upright sitting position. Hearing a pair of splashes directly in front of him, Sora opened his eyes and removed his hands from his head. Lifting his gaze, he saw that two of the obsidian creatures were standing in the water. Together with Sora, the pair formed a triangle formation in the lake. Hacking and coughing slightly, the brown haired boy pushed up with his left hand and forced himself on to his feet. Looking around, Sora saw that he was surrounded by eight of the creatures, with a few more coming to join the party. Scanning the ones closest to him with half-lidded eyes, the brown haired boy wondered why these things were so determined to hurt him.

"What did I ever do to you guys?" he half-heartedly asked them, not expecting a reply.

Turning to his left, Sora tried to leap over one of the monsters and bring himself closer to the cottage. One of the monsters, however dashed towards the spiky haired teen as he started to crouch down and slashed him on the right side of his stomach with its left claw. Crying out, Sora collapsed to his knees and placed his right hand on the now burning spot.

' _This won't stop me. It can't,'_ Sora desperately thought to himself. _'I am so close.'_

Just a little more and he would finally reach Riku's location. Sora had to get to the other play island. His friend was in serious danger with these things roaming about.

Forgoing the jump, Sora simply ran in between the two monsters directly in front of them, kicking up water as he did so. Both monsters tried to slash his legs as he passed them. The one on Sora's left missed but the one on his right landed a solid blow on the spiky haired teen's leg. The red and black clothed cried out and stumbled forward slightly but did not fall. After taking a few more steps, the young islander launched himself out of the lake and onto solid ground. One of the monsters had flattened itself against the hard granite and his right foot landed right on top of it when Sora came down to earth.

Hissing at the familiar burning sensation in his foot, the brown haired boy crouched down again and leaped towards the roof of the cottage. Ordinarily, he would have been able to make the jump with ease. Ordinarily, Sora would have been able to make the short jump with hiss. However, he had a rough night that seemed determined to run him ragged and wasn't as energized as he normally would be. Only his upper body managed to pass the rim of the cottage before gravity reasserted its hold over his entire frame. The spiky haired teen slammed both of his hands onto the wood, desperately forcing his fingertips in between the wood planks to keep himself from falling back down to the ground. His stomach impacted painful against the rim of the cottage, nearly knocking the air out of his lungs.

Sucking in a deep breath at the sudden pain, the red and black clothed boy opened his eyes and watched as two more of the monsters started to fade into view on the roof of the cottage.

"Will you guys give it a rest?" Sora cried out, a somewhat pleading note to his angry shout.

The only answer he received was a painful burning sensation in his left foot when one of the creature's below him struck it with its claw. Gritting his teeth, the red and black clothed boy desperately tried to pull himself onto the roof of the cottage as the two monsters before him pulled themselves to their full height. To help speed himself up, Sora lifted his legs and placed both his feet against the wall of the structure. He began an awkward walking-climb to gain more distance from the monsters below him.

The spiky haired teen just managed to lift his right foot onto the roof of the cottage when one of the monsters in front of his leaped at him. Pulling his left hand away from the planks, Sora twisted his body around and watched as the beast sailed past him. He nearly lost his hold on the roof with his remaining hand when the monster's left claw ran down his front, scratching him from collar bone to belly button, as its owner flew past him. Desperately reaching forward with his left hand, Sora managed to find another hold and pull himself the rest of the way onto the cottage.

Huffing and puffing, the thoroughly bruised and exhausted teen stood with his hands on his knees. He just barely saw the other creature charging towards him in time. Throwing his left foot into the air, Sora awkwardly spun on the ball of his right foot to avoid the stab the creature through at his now airborne appendage. The tired islander nearly ended up falling off the edge of the cottage roof with that maneuver, an accident that would have caused him to land amidst the small mob of monsters looking up at him from the ground.

"You're not stopping me," Sora cried as loud as he could after completing his spin, placing his left foot back on the wooden planks. He ran past the obsidian hued creature before it could launch another attack, not sparing it a momentary glance.

After a few quick steps, Sora's feet came into contact with hard gravel before he made it to the wooden bridge connecting the two islands. The spiky haired teen ran across the structure as fast as he could in his exhausted state. He washe relieved to see no more of these monsters rising up to confront him as he did so.

Sora was even more relieved when he finally reached the smaller play island. Riku was still where he had last seen him, standing right in the center of the landscape and looking at something in the distance. His back was to the younger brown haired boy, who skidded to a halt less than four steps away from.

Completely winded now, Sora couldn't keep himself from bending forward slightly and placing his hands on his knees as he took a moment to catch his breath. Once it looked like his breathing was finally coming back under his control, the red and black clothed boy found the strength to call out to Riku.

Lifting his head so he could look at his best friend, Sora said, "Where's Kairi? I thought she was with you!"

A quick scan of the smaller play island once he was done speaking confirmed Sora's earlier suspicions. The red haired teen wasn't here with them. She wouldn't have been able to hide herself behind any of the trees here, not even the big Paopu fruit bearing one.

Had Riku gotten separated from her because of those creatures? Was she still by the raft all on her own? If that was the case, why was the silver haired teen just standing there?

Detecting movement from his best friend out of the corner of his eye, Sora once again turned to fully look at him. A bad feeling entered his chest when he saw that Riku had lowered his head slightly.

"Riku…" Sora began, a terrible idea coming to mind after seeing the motion from his friend. Was Kairi-

"The door has opened…" Riku simply said, his tone flat yet relaxed. He didn't bother to turn to look at his friend while he spoke.

Sora on his part was confused by what his friend had just said. What door? What did that even have to do with Kairi? Pulling himself to his full height, the spiky haired teen said, "What?"

"The door has opened Sora," Riku practically shouted the words as he finally turned to face the brown haired boy. There was an excited tone to his voice and an equally excited expression on his face. Lifting his hands slightly, the silver haired teen loudly shouted, "Now we can go to the outside world!"

Lifting his own hands, which were now clenched into fists, and waving them slightly, Sora loudly snapped back at the other islander. "What are you talking about? We got to find Kairi."

He wanted to ask if Riku had even seen what was happening here. There was a strange floating sphere in the sky and monsters running around the larger play island. Did the other boy even see how many of them had attacked Sora while the spiky haired teen was trying to get here? This wasn't the time to be talking about some door, much less going to the outside world.

Not with Kairi stuck all alone out there.

Sora opened his mouth to talk about the obsidian hued creatures only for Riku to snap at him before he could say anything.

"Kairi's coming with us," Riku declared, taking a firm step forward with his right foot while his hands turned into fists at his sides. This time there was anger mixed into the older boy's voice and expression when he spoke. Real anger.

It had been a long time since Sora had seen the silver haired teen look like he was going to lose his temper. So long that he could only stand there and stared at his friend with wide eyes and an open mouth. Perhaps noticing the effect he was taking, Riku closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Opening them a moment later, he turned his gaze towards the sky and starting speaking again.

"Once we step through, we might not be able to come back. We may never see our parents again. There's no turning back," Riku spoke, his gaze turned towards the sky. Sora wasn't entirely sure but his best friend might have been looking directly at the large sphere hovering above right now. His voice rising in volume as he spoke, Riku continued speaking. "But this may be our only chance. We can't let fear stop us. I'm not afraid of the darkness!"

After that last sentence flew out of Riku's lips, an awkward silence fell between the two boys as they looked each other in the eyes. Their bearings couldn't be more different. Riku stood calm and confident while Sora looked more than a little confused and apprehensive as he started at his friend.

' _What is going on here?'_ Sora thought, briefly licking his lower lip as he struggled to think of what to say.

The brunette still wanted to go look for Kairi and make sure that she was all right but Riku didn't seem to have any intention of leaving this spot at the moment. He couldn't exactly leave the other boy alone with those creatures out and about. He could clearly see that the silver haired teen also hadn't brought a toy sword with him tonight.

Speaking of those creatures, where were they right now? Were they coming here? The red and black clothed boy was about to look over his shoulder and see if the two of them were going to have some unwelcome company when he heard Riku call his name.

Pausing for a split second, Sora swallowed an imaginary lump in his throat before once again focusing his gaze on the silver haired boy. He saw that Riku had lifted his right hand and was holding it out for the other islander to take, an expectant and waiting look on his face.

' _Just trust me,'_ his eyes seemed to say. _'I know what I'm doing.'_

Sora hesitated.

He had known Riku for many years. They had been close friends ever since they first met and shared a lot of experiences together, both good and bad. Before tonight, Sora had always trusted and believed in his friend, following the older boy's lead without question. But now something inside of the spiky haired teen – some instinct - was telling him that Riku was making a mistake. And it was going to be a big one.

"Riku, I…" Sora began to say, fighting the urge to take a step away from his best friend, who just stood there and calmly waited for him. Unable to maintain eye contact, the red and black clothed boy lowered his gaze.

When his blue eyes came to rest at Riku's feet, they went wide from shock and alarm. Without the brown haired boy noticing, a round pool of black and purple liquid had appeared on the small island's surface at some point while his best friend was talking. Riku, either oblivious or unafraid of its presence, was currently standing in the middle of it while small tendrils of black smoke were rising up from the strange water like steam in a hot spring. Some of those tendrils had taken a more solid vine-like form and become coils of an unknown black material that were wrapping themselves around the taller boy's frame. They moved with surprising speed and, by the time Sora had noticed them, they had already wrapped themselves around the older boy's legs and waist.

Blue eyes widening as the sight brought a powerful surge of panic through his chest, Sora screamed his friend's name. "Riku!"

The spiky haired teen immediately started running towards the other boy, throwing all thoughts of Kairi and the strange creatures appearing on the islands out of his mind. His head was completely concerned with worry for the older teen and a desperate panic had taken a hold of him. After three rapid steps, Sora's right foot became caught on something incredibly sticky and refused to keep moving forward. His own momentum throwing him off balance, Sora hastily threw his arms out to the sides to keep from falling flat on his face even as he stepped into that same sticky substance with his left foot.

Looking down towards his feet as his balance came back to him, the red and black clothed boy's eyes widened in horror when he saw that the pool of strangely colored liquid had expanded to cover a larger area when he took his eyes off of it. He was now standing inside of it as well.

Despite his best efforts Sora couldn't pull either of his legs out of the water. He was stuck standing just two short steps away from his best friend and unable to close the distance between them. The strange water-like substance was now emitting so much black smoke the red and black clothed boy was having difficulty seeing what was going on around him. He could however feel some sort of hard and sticky substance was coiling around his legs and climbing up to his stomach now.

Absolutely terrified now, though he had no idea why, the spiky haired teen turned his gaze towards his closest friend. He was more than a little surprised to see Riku just standing there, completely unbothered by what was happening and holding his right hand out for Sora to take. It was like the other boy hadn't even bothered to notice what was going on right now. That just made Sora's worry for his friend rise to a new height.

Ignoring how his heart seemed to be trying to jump out of his throat, the red and black clothed boy grit his teeth and reached forward with his left hand. Despite stretching his arm as far as it could possibly go, he came up short and failed to reach Riku's. Sora tried to close the distance by leaning forward but the tendrils currently climbing up his stomach were making that extremely difficult. Their grip was unrelenting and despite his best efforts Sora couldn't get his legs to so much as twitch in place right now. The black smoke the pool was emitting continued to increase in volume, cloaking more of Riku's own heavily wrapped frame in darkness. As far as Sora could tell, only Riku's outstretched hand and head were untouched by the dark vines.

' _Come on, come on, come on,'_ Sora begged no one in particular as he strained with all his might to grab his friend's hand. He could see the tendrils climbing down from Riku's shoulder and moving down his outstretched arm. _'Let me reach him. Let me help him.'_

Alas, that was not to be. When it looked like Sora was finally going to brush the tips of his fingers against those of his friend's, the vines coiling around his body pulled him back and away from the silver haired teen. At the same time, the black smoke completely enveloped Riku and hid him from Sora's sight.

"NOOOOO!" Sora screamed as loud as he could.

He started to desperately wiggle against his bindings as everything around him started to fade to black at an alarming rate. But no matter which way he turned his head, an all-encompassing darkness was all the spiky haired teen could now see. The black smoke had enveloped everything. Even his own body had become invisible to his eyes.

' _This can't be happening!'_ the spiky haired teen thought to himself in despair, continuing to squirm as best as he could. _'It just can't!'_

 _Relax. Your journey isn't over yet._

There was no sound to accompany the words but, for a brief instant, Sora felt like someone was speaking to him in a calm and reassuring tone of voice. The spiky haired teen ceased his struggles and finally saw something in the darkness.

A small flash of light.

One that quickly grew to encompass Sora's entire vision, becoming so bright that the red and black clothed boy was forced to close his eyes out of fear of being rendered blind. But as the light enveloped everything around him and drove away the darkness, Sora felt his binding melt away from him and he instinctively crossed his arms in front of his face to further shield his eyes from the light. His tired body was filled with a strange warmth and suddenly felt totally refreshed, as if all his energy and more had finally returned to him.

Feeling something metallic appear in his left hand, Sora unintentionally curled his fingers around the cylindrical shaped object. It was cool to the touch but in a relaxing sort of way. It was also heavier than the spiky haired teen expected it to be, causing him to start free falling forward.

"Whoa," he cried out, swinging his arms wildly at his sides as his right foot slid off the ground. His eyes snapped open and the brown haired boy found himself looking down at solid ground.

He struggled to regain his balance but wasn't able to do so. Falling forward onto his left knee, Sora slammed his right hand onto the ground to keep from face planting. He hissed at the momentary flair of pain in his hand and knee but was otherwise fine. Rapidly shaking his head from side to side several times, Sora lifted his gaze and took in his surroundings. To his surprise, the red and black clothed boy discovered he was back on the smaller play island.

' _What?'_ he thought to himself, looking around.

Everything seemed perfectly fine here. The island looked exactly like it normally did. The strange pool from earlier and the tendrils that had been holding on to Sora were nowhere in sight, having vanished without a trace. And so had a certain silver haired teen.

"Riku," Sora softly called out to his friend, not believing he had just disappeared out of thin air. Wildly turning his head from side to side, Sora yelled his friend's name. "Riku!"

There was no answer to his shout. No matter which way he turned his head, the spiky haired teen saw no sign of his best friend. A third call of the other boy's name also received nothing but silence. The other islander wasn't here anymore.

Huffing and puffing, Sora found himself feeling an extreme amount of worry and confusion in regards to his friend. He wanted to know where Riku had disappeared. Was other boy all right?

' _He's got to be,'_ Sora tried to convince himself. _'He's got to be all right. Kairi too.'_

The red and black clothed boy would never forgive himself if anything had happened to either of his friends. Resolving to keep looking for the two of them, Sora pushed himself back onto his feet. As he did so, the brown haired boy realized he was still holding onto whatever object had fallen into his left hand earlier. It wasn't nearly as heavy as he had first believed.

Blinking his eyes, Sora held the object up in order to examine it.

The first thing he noticed was that the object strongly resembled a giant key. It was approximately 3.5' long. The main body resembled a silver pole had a flat tip. Unlike the majority of the rod, the base of it was light blue in color. The strange object had four silver teeth poking out of it in a straight row, starting from the flattened tip. They roughly resembled a four pointed crown with the first and last tooth being little more than straight rectangles. The two inner teeth looked like slightly shorter triangles with a circle on the tip. Sora was clutching the object by a small black cylindrical handle long enough for him to grasp it with both hands. The handle was surrounded by a rather large golden window-like guard. Primarily possessing a loose square frame with rounded corner, the guard was stylized with two cylindrical shapes where the handle connected with it. From the base of the object - connected to the larger cylinder - dangled a small silver keychain. At the end of the ordinary looking chain was a small silver pendant in the shape of a heart.

"What… is this thing?" Sora asked no one in particular as he continued to hold the object up and examine. There was an odd shine to the object's surface, one that almost made it seem like it was glowing despite the fact that it wasn't emitting any light. "Is this a sword? Or a giant key?"

 _Keyblade._

Sora started at that word popped into his head out of nowhere.

 _Keyblade. Keyblade._

"Wait… is that you?" Sora called out, wondering if the silent voice he heard just now was the same one that spoke to him during that strange dream. There was no response from the voice.

After a long moment, Sora turned his gaze down to the now named object with a small frown. There was only one thing on his mind at that moment.

"What is going on here? Is all of this for real?"

* * *

 **And cut.**

 **I can't tell you how relieved I was to no longer be writing an interlude chapter. Ironically, the fight scene - the part I wanted to write the most - ended up being the hardest part of the whole chapter. I went through five to seven rewrites before just throwing up my hands and saying it is as good as I am going to get it at my current level.**

 **Don't really have anything else to say but thanks for waiting to everyone who favorited and followed my story. I will not make any promises when the next chapter comes out but I hope to finish the Destiny Islands arc before new year at the very least. We'll see how it goes.**

 **Until next time everyone.**

 **P.S. - I do have one question for the readers who have experience posting stories on this site. I was skimming over my earlier chapters while writing this and noticed spelling mistakes here and there. I got to ask... if I were to go in and correct them, would the website read my story was updated despite no new chapters being posted?**


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